


Harry Potter and the Realistic Events of the Final Horcrux

by ReverendKilljoy



Series: The Totally Realistic Series of Magical Events [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Play, Animal Abuse, Betrayal, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, British Bull Terriers, Character Death, Child Abuse, Civil War, Clothing-optional Luna Lovegood, Consensual Kink, Crucifixion, Dark Susan Bones, Distant Thunder, Espionage, F/F, F/M, Fascism, Gen, Guerrilla Warfare, Head Cannon (not Head Canon), Ice Cream Sisterhood, Implied Poly Luna Lovegood, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Infertility, International Conspiracy, Is it cheating though?, Legilimency (Harry Potter), Makeup Sex, Muggles, Occlumency (Harry Potter), Old Flames, Past Child Abuse, Past Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Past Nymphadora Tonks/OMC - Freeform, Platonic Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Scandalous Ginny & Gabrielle, Scars, Self-Harm, Someone Owes Neville 1000 Galleons, Terrorism, That Poor Fly, Torture, grave robbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:47:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 37,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25778386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReverendKilljoy/pseuds/ReverendKilljoy
Summary: After the deaths of Albus Dumbledore and Draco Malfoy, the murder of Alastor Moody, and the attack by forces loyal to Voldemort on the Hogwarts school, Harry and his friends agree to work together to locate and defeat Voldemort and his minions.Their first orders of business:find a secure location from which to operate, bypass the numerous spies and sympathizers in their own Ministry of Magic, and deal with the personal fall-out of an under-addressed revelation from the last volume.
Relationships: Apolline Delacour/Guy Delacour, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley, Harry Potter/Nymphadora Tonks, Hermione Granger & Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood, Percy Weasley/Audrey Lewis, Susan Bones/Ginny Weasley, Walter/Clara
Series: The Totally Realistic Series of Magical Events [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1662466
Comments: 88
Kudos: 37





	1. I Know What You’ll Do This Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Book Seven of the Totally Realistic Series of Magical Events (Studio Cut)
> 
> Note: This book stands in place of "The Deathly Hallows" for reasons that will (one hopes) become clear in the text.
> 
> This story is being written solely by ReverendKilljoy and does not reflect the plot imagined by WaskeHD, but instead only uses his characters and backstory, in a similar fashion to "Harry Potter and the Totally Realistic Events of Half-Blood Prince (Studio Cut)."
> 
> Warning- this chapter contains a description of execution in a gruesome fashion. There is no "skip note." If this scene is too much for you, have a lovely day. There are 236,467 English-language Harry Potter stories on Archive of Our Own. Many of them feature no executions whatsoever (or so I would assume). Enjoy.
> 
> Killjoy

**1\. I Know What You’ll Do This Summer**

The tall, sparely aristocratic woman looked penetratingly at her husband, who was carefully decanting a bottle of wine into a crystal serving vessel. His hands trembled slightly, a barely detectable tremor which was complicating the delicate task.

“The best vintage, I presume?” Her voice was surprisingly soft and warm, given her severe cheekbones and the contempt in which she clearly held the man.

“Of course,” the man replied, shaking his long, platinum hair in irritation like a horse bothered by a fly. “Would you dare less?”

“It doesn’t much matter what I would do, does it? Nothing matters any longer, does it?” She looked away, silent.

He completed his task, carefully adding the heavy crystal decanter to a silver tray which, with a flick of his wand, rose to glide silently after him. 

“We still have our reputation. We have our pride in our name, in our house. These are not nothing, Narcissa.”

She snorted in open contempt. “ _Your_ name, you mean? And what is that, now that we have no son to carry it on? What is our house, now that _He_ rules here?”

“Be still!” His temper was clear, though his voice remained soft. Eyes and ears were everywhere, even in what had been his home, before. He looked about, from habit more than fear, and continued. “Until _His_ plans are complete, we shall have to endure. As I endured in Azkaban, while you remained free.”

“He doesn’t even drink it, you know. The wine? You could serve anything.” She ran a smoothing hand over her impeccable gown, removing wrinkles that existed only in her affronted imagination. She touched a hand to her hair, and fixed a neutral half-smile of smug certainty onto her beautiful features.

“How little you understand,” he sighed. “One of the others would know. Do you think any there would hesitate to let slip an unkind word at the right time? We’ve lost our son. We may still yet save our home, our lives, our positions in the New Order.”

She looked at him, and shook her head softly. It was no use arguing. She held open the door for him, and they went to serve their guests.

The sitting room was full of people sitting silently at a long, deeply polished table, the dark wood a dim mirror to those around it. The normal furniture in the room had been placed together neatly against the walls. The only light came from the fire crackling in a beautiful marble fireplace, topped with a mirror in a golden frame. Snape and Yaxley lingered in the doorway, the last to arrive. Their eyes, which were getting used to the twilight, were attracted upwards, to the most bizarre element of the scene: an incpacitated human figure who, suspended upside down above the table, turned slowly, as if attached to an invisible rope, reflected in the mirror and in the bare and shiny surface of the table. None of those present watched or commented on this singular spectacle.

"Yaxley, Snape," said a loud, clear voice at the head of the table. "You are very nearly late."

Whoever had spoken was seated right in front of the fireplace, so at first it was difficult for newcomers to distinguish anything more than his silhouette. Approaching, however, they saw the face shining in the dark, hairless, serpentine, with two slits instead of nostrils and sparkling red eyes with vertical pupils. He was so pale that a pearly glow seemed to emanate from his cool flesh.

"Severus, here," Voldemort said, pointing to the place to his right. "Yaxley, there, the seat that would have been Dolohov’s."

The two men took the assigned seats, Yaxley somewhat apprehensively, but showing no open fear at taking the dead man’s seat. Everyone's eyes followed Snape, but it was to a mysterious, cloaked figure that Voldemort turned first.

"Now, then?"

"My Lord, the Ministry does not have the location of Potter. He remains in an unplottable hideaway, and I have not been able to discover the secret-keeper of their fidelius. There is nothing in the Auror Office records or the Minister’s files, both of which I have seen."

“ _Yet_ ,” said Voldemort with a scarcely veiled threat.

“Yet, My Lord!” The figure was hooded, and his voice was concealed by a charm as well, as not even Voldemort’s inner council was privy to the identity of the New Order’s most valuable asset, their most covert spy within the Ministry of Magic. “But I have reports that he will attend the wedding of the blood-traitor, Bill Weasley, to the foreign Veela whore at their home in a few weeks time.”

The interest around the table sharpened palpably: some stiffened, others stirred, all stared at the spy and Voldemort.

"A few weeks time," repeated Voldemort. He looked around the table. His red eyes intertwined with Snape's black ones with such intensity that some of those present looked elsewhere, as if they were afraid of getting burnt by the ferocity of that look. Snape, however, quietly abided the look and after a few moments Voldemort's lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.

“You have given your report,” Voldemort said dismissively to his spy. “Return to the Ministry before you are missed.”

“My Lord,” said the spy, rising, bowing, and swirling from the room in a few long strides.

Voldemort’s gaze had moved upward to the slowly rotating body; he seemed lost in his thoughts.

Yaxley, who seemed determined to gain his share of approval, spoke next. “We now have several infiltrators in the Magical Transport Office. If Potter Apparates while still underage, or uses the floo network, we will know at once. "

Snape murmured then, as if thinking aloud. “He won’t do either. The Order was correctly convinced that we have infiltrated the Ministry. They had already begun avoiding any form of transport controlled or regulated by the Ministry; they are wary of everything that has a connection with that place. Also, with the resignation of his guardian, the Auror Office is no longer concerned with the protection of Harry Potter. I should be most surprised to see Harry Potter at the Weasley wedding in person.”

"All the better," said Voldemort. "He'll have to move out in the open eventually. It will be much easier to catch him if we are able to provoke him into action.”

Again, Voldemort watched the slowly rotating body and resumed, "I will take care of the boy personally. Too many mistakes have been made with Harry Potter. I myself have been guilty of underestimating his luck. If Potter is alive, it depends more on my mistakes than on his victories."

Those present looked at Voldemort with concern. Everyone, judging by their expressions, was afraid of being blamed for the fact that Harry Potter was still alive. Voldemort, however, spoke more to himself than to anyone in particular, and kept his gaze fixed on the slowly precessing pendulum of the body above him.

“I have been over-eager, and hampered by chance, the saboteur of all plans that are less than perfectly plotted. But now I have learned: I understand those things that I didn't understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I will be.”

At these words, as in response, a sudden moan rose, a prolonged and terrible scream of anguish and pain. Many of those present looked down, alarmed, because the sound seemed to come from under their feet.

"Wormtail," said Voldemort with barely concealed irritation and without taking his eyes off the elevated body, "have I not ordered you to keep our prisoners in silence?"

"Yes, My Lord," exhaled a little man halfway across the table, from a chair that at first sight had seemed empty, so much had he sunk into it. Now he slipped away and sneaked out of the room, leaving behind a strange silvery glow, like a ghost moving through a fog.

"As I was saying," Voldemort went on, peering again at the tense faces of his followers, "now I understand more. For example, I have been studying and thinking, on how Potter has survived against my wishes. I shall begin eliminating variables, until success is in my grasp. Severus, I wish to kill Potter with the old fool Dumbledore’s own wand, and make my final statement as to who is the master of death and the greatest wizard the world has known. Give the old man’s wand to me.”

There was a murmuring, and Lucius Malfoy actually looked away.

“It was not recovered, My Lord,” Snape said, then smoothly went on before Voldemort could respond. “The Malfoy boy had it when he was killed by Potter.”

“Potter. Again, Potter!” Voldemort’s voice was a sibilant hiss. "Lucius, I don't see why _you_ should continue to have a wand, when it was your son who failed."

Lucius Malfoy looked up. Without pausing he said, “Draco didn’t fail: Dumbledore is dead! Ask Snape why he left without the headmaster’s wand.”

He fell silent, as if just realizing that he had rebuked Voldemort aloud. Silence descended like a heavy blanket, and Narcissa stared at her husband in unabashed horror.

Voldemort regarded him for a long moment, and then laughed. His laugh was awkward, mirthless, performed. The others joined nervously, and Voldemort suddenly cut them off with a gesture.

“You amuse me, Lucius. It has been too long since I was asked such a pointed question.” He turned to Snape. “Your wand, Severus. I require it."

Snape slipped his hand into his robe, took his wand from it and passed it to Voldemort, who raised it in front of his red eyes to examine it closely.

"What is its construction?"

"East Indian Ebony, my Lord," murmured Snape.

"What about the core?"

“Dittany."

"Well," said Voldemort. He pulled out his wand and held it for comparison. “Very good, Severus. You may take Lucius’s wand in recompense.”

Lucius startled, but Narcissa put a hand on his arm. Wandless or not, he was lucky to be alive.

"I asked Severus, as you wished, Lucius, isn't that enough? But I notice that you and your wife have not seemed happy lately. What is it about our presence in your home that you are sorry about, Lucius?”

"Nothing, nothing, my Lord!"

"Oh, so many lies..."

The mellifluous voice seemed to continue to hiss even after his cruel mouth had ceased to move. Something heavy was sliding on the floor under the table.

The huge snake climbed slowly into Voldemort's chair. It reared up, interminable, and crawled on his shoulders, thick as a man's thigh, eyes with wide and immobile vertical pupils. Voldemort distractedly stroked the creature with long, thin fingers, without taking his eyes off Lucius Malfoy.

“Why do the Malfoys seem so unhappy with their fate? Isn't my return, my rise to power, just what they professed to desire for so many years?"

"Of course, my Lord," said Lucius Malfoy. His hand trembled as he wiped the sweat from his lip. "We wanted it—we _want_ it!"

To Malfoy's left, his wife made a strange, rigid nod and looked away from Voldemort and the snake. 

"My Lord," said a striking woman halfway across the table, her voice choked with emotion, "it is an honor to have you here. There can be no greater pleasure!"

She sat across from her sister, similar in appearance with dark and light streaked hair and heavy-lidded eyes, and yet so different. 

"There can be no greater pleasure," repeated Voldemort, pondering. "Said by you, Bellatrix, this means much."

She blazed; her eyes welled with tears of joy.

"My Lord knows I am only telling the truth!"

"There can be no greater pleasure? Not even carrying out my will upon the traitors and filth that pervert our heritage, and mix our blood?”

She stared at him, her lips parted, disoriented.

"I don't understand what you mean, my Lord."

“I do not believe that Potter will show himself at this wedding, not unless he is a complete fool. But there will be many of our enemies there, thinking they are safe, thinking they are secure. You will take a selection of my Death Eaters and a few of our newest allies, and you will send these mudblood-loving heretics a lesson that shall not be soon forgotten.”

Voldemort paused, and stroked Nagini the serpent sensually.

"Many of our oldest family trees fail over time," he went on. "You shall begin pruning, to keep the whole healthy. Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest."

"Yes, my Lord," murmured Bellatrix, and again her eyes overflowed with tears of gratitude. "It shall be done!"

“Yes, eliminating weakness and rot.”

Voldemort lifted Snape's wand, pointed it at the slowly spinning shape on the table and waved it slightly. The body came back to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.

"Do you recognize our guest, Severus?" Voldemort asked.

Snape looked up at the face above him. All the Death Eaters now looked at the prisoner, as if finally free to show their curiosity. When she found herself facing the table, the woman pleaded in a broken and terrified voice: "Severus! Help me!"

"Ah yes," Snape said as the prisoner turned slowly.

Voldemort observed. "For those who don't know, Charity Burbage is among us tonight, who until recently taught at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

From various points on the table, moans of assent rose. A thick, humpbacked woman with pointed teeth chuckled.

"Yes, Professor Burbage taught all about Muggles to the children of wizards and witches. She explained that they are not so different from us."

One of the Death Eaters spat on the ground. Charity Burbage found herself face to face with Snape again.

"Severus, I beg of you—"

"Silence," Voldemort ordered, with another small movement of Snape’s wand, and Burbage was silent, as if gagged. “Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of our children, ‘Professor’ Burbage published a moving defense of Muggles in the Daily Prophet just last week. Wizards, she said, must accept these thieves into our ranks. The decrease in Purebloods is a _very desirable_ circumstance. If it were up to her, she would make us all mate with Muggles, or with Veela! Perhaps with a troll!”

Nobody laughed: the anger and contempt in Voldemort's voice were unequivocal. For the third time, Charity Burbage found herself looking at Snape. Tears ran from her eyes into her hair. Snape returned her gaze, impassive, as she continued to turn slowly.

" _Petrificus totalus._ ”

The flash of light illuminated every corner of the room. Charity crashed onto the table, which vibrated and creaked. Many of the Death Eaters jumped back in their chairs.

"A most serviceable wand, yes,” Voldemort whispered softly. “Dinner, Nagini."

The huge snake crawled down the Dark Lord’s shoulders and across the polished wood. She approached the head of Charity Burbage, and her unhinged jaw opened wide, wider. Though unable to move or speak, Burbage’s eyes grew wide with horror, and wet with tears. The assembled Death Eaters were silent.

Nagini began to eat.

* * *

Within the Ministry of Magic, Percey Weasley hurried through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, taking long strides through the dense cubicles, looking for department head Kingsley Shacklebolt. He paused at Shacklebolt’s office door, as one of the Aurors, Carmichael, was just about to pull closed the door.

“Just a moment there,” Percey said importantly. “A message from the Minister directly.”

“Come in, Weasley,” sighed Shacklebolt. He was visibly aged, with tufts of iron gray beginning to appear around the edges of his kupi cap. His skin, once smooth as onyx, now showed lines and wrinkles from too much takeaway food, too many reheated teas and coffees, and too much grief and care.

Percey eyed Carmichael dramatically, but Shacklebolt waved his hand. “Go on. Carmichael is a senior Auror now.”

“The minister wants to meet with you personally to discuss the request for additional security from Arthur Weasley. He expects you in his office tomorrow at 8:00 in the morning.”

Shacklebolt didn’t even raise an eyebrow, so many times had his resources been chuffed and reshuffled to cover too much ground, too many threats, too many tips and rumors.

“Is that all?”

Percey looked down his nose somewhat too obviously, and reluctantly shook his head. Clearly he’d hoped for an argument which he could shut down with the authority of his boss’s position. 

“Do not be late,” he said, seeing himself out. 

Carmichael pulled the door closed behind him.

“Can’t believe he’s a Weasley,” Carmichael muttered. “Have you seen the youngest, the daughter, flying before? Blimey, I was there for a few of their Quidditch practices. She’s a hellion on a broomstick.”

“Afraid I haven’t much time for Quidditch.” Kingsley looked at the pile of papers on his desk, and dropped his quill in disgust. “We might as well wait until I see what Scrimgeour wants this time. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Very good, sir.” Carmichael held open the door as Shacklebolt collected his things. “Look at it this way. If you can make it home before the hour you can still get, what, six hours of sleep before you have to come back?”

“Five and a half,” sighed Shacklebolt. “I still have to walk the dog.”

* * *

Bellatrix Lestrange sat at the table in Malfoy Manor, flanked by two hand-picked Death Eaters and a small crew of recruits, newcomers from the spontaneous uprisings against mudbloods and blood traitors her Dark Master had inspired. Lord Voldemort had been clear: if they could not bring these fellow travelers into line with his control, they were a dangerous distraction and a possible threat to his control in the New Order he envisioned. This was to be a test, to see if they could be brought to heel. If not, then Voldemort and Bellatrix as his most able lieutenant would have more blood on their hands before this was over.

“The blood traitor will be holding a public wedding to his French whore, and we expect that there will be a large number of our foes there for the occasion.” She smiled, a terrifying cruel smile. “We cannot allow them to think that this is acceptable. You will be one of several teams taking action that day.”

“Can’t let that slip by, can we?” The young wizard, too ignorant and unskilled to have graduated from Hogwarts, must have done whatever schooling he received at home. A surprising number of their new followers came from the unofficial ranks of what in Bellatrix’s day had been called hedge-wizards. This one was young, vicious, and narrow-minded in a way that made him very convenient.

“Our people will make sure that the protections are dropped at the right time, and that the Aurors will be too busy with other matters to respond. Your people will do whatever you can to punish the partygoers. Understood?” Her voice was thin, but there was iron in it, too.

“Course we do. Not thick, you know,” the young wizard with the shaved head and the ear piercings grinned, showing a silver fang alongside his tea- and cigarette-stained teeth. “You want ‘arrassment, or can we go bigger?”

“Bigger. There is only one target you must not kill. Under no circumstances is this boy to be touched, but we don’t believe he will be stupid enough to be there.”

She slid a copy of an old Daily Prophet across the table. Looking up from the photo on the front page, blinking away from the camera flash, was a young wizard with round glasses, a mop of unruly black hair, and a scar in the figure of a lightning bolt on his forehead. Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, for now.

“If you see this one, stay back. He belongs to our Dark Lord.” 

* * *

“Good to see you, mate,” Harry said, letting his friend Ron Weasley in the door to his flat in Carnaby Street. “Any trouble?”

“Never imagined I’d cross London on a Muggle bus,” Ron grinned. “I wish my dad could have seen it.”

Harry sat down at the table, and offered Ron a cup of tea and some biscuits. Ron, surprisingly, wasn’t hungry. He got right to the point.

“I think you were right about avoiding the floo network, but I wouldn’t have hesitated about the Knight Bus. We should assume that all magical means of transportation are being observed by the Ministry, monitoring for ‘persons of interest.’ I guess after the death of Dumbledore and the disappearance of Snape and the others, that includes us.”

Harry nodded. “And it seems like whatever the Ministry knows, Voldemort knows the next day.”

“I’ve done a bit of research,” Ron began, but then he smiled briefly, “By which I mean that Hermione has been doing research and sharing it with me. Going through the _Prophet_ , and talking to my dad about his work, and looking at attacks, it’s pretty safe to say that the Ministry of Magic is so compromised that we should assume anyone not personally known to us as reliable is a sympathizer at best, or a Death Eater at worst.”

Their smiles faded and they sat a moment in silence.

“I’m tired of being blindsided,” Harry said bitterly. “I know it’s crazy, but I want to take the fight to them for a change, rather than sitting around waiting to see what they’re up to next.”

Ron nodded. “No, I get it. I have an idea about that, actually.”

They two young men huddled together, occasionally making notes or arguing some detail, as their plans took shape. As the sun set outside, they were finally satisfied with what they had struggled with all afternoon.

Harry looked up from the parchment that the two young men had filled with notes and diagrams.

“Do you really think this will work?” He sounded unsure, haunted. It was one thing to confidently declare his goal to resist Lord Voldemort, and rather another to match up with the most dangerous witches and wizards in Britain, and to bring his friends along as well.

Ron nodded slowly. “Yeah, mate. The wedding is too big a provocation, and we should expect they’ll try something. Dad’s been dropping hints around the Ministry that the underage family members may have to give the wedding a miss out of safety. They shouldn’t expect you to be there, or any of us except maybe Ginny and me.”

Harry pushed a hand through his hair, and risked a grin. “Excellent. It sounds like we have a plan, then.”

Ron stood, and looked around suddenly. “Blimey, it’s late. That bus will take ages, I best be off.”

Harry stood as well, and regarded his friend carefully.

“Yeah, erm, about that…” He sighed. “I’ve talked it over with Tonks, in her role as head of our security. Now we have our plan, it’s too dangerous for you to be heading back home to the Burrow for a while.”

“What?” Ron paled. “What are you going to do, mate, sit on me? Where is Tonks anyway? I’m not having this argument twice.”

“I get it, I do.” Harry nodded. “Tonks is gathering up the others, and Ginny will be bringing some things for you along from the Burrow. Until we see what happens at the wedding, this is the safest place for all of us.”

“And how are we supposed to all fit in the flat, Harry?” Ron was trying to control his temper, but he was clearly upset. “Are we to be stacked like cord wood and sleep in shifts? And what about your Aunt and the twins?”

Harry looked down, and Ron could see that he’d touched a nerve. “Amelia took the girls to Grimmauld Place, with the Order of the Phoenix watching out for them. She said it was for the best that we and the Order not know too much about what each other have planned. In case someone is captured.”

Ron’s red face gave way to pale, with a hint of green. “You mean tortured, don’t you? We’re setting up on the assumption that some of us will be tortured, and broken.”

Harry put a hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Trust me, any of us could be caught up, and those dark wizards don’t fuck about. Any of us could be broken, or used to bait the others. What we don’t know, we can’t be made to tell. Even the plan we’ve just made, each of the others will only get their bits. You and I are the only ones who will have the whole plan, and we’ll just have to be extra careful.”

“We need partners,” Ron said suddenly, his eyes grown flat and calculating. “You and I, each of us should have someone with us, if it comes down to it, to make sure we can’t talk and give up the others.”

“Are you talking—?” Harry’s eyes grow wide. “You mean we should have a way out, if it comes to that?”

Ron nodded.

“You’re right.” Harry sat again, and put his head in his hands. “We’ll think of something, a last resort, that each of us could have if it comes to it. We’re sitting here, talking about giving suicide pills to children. What kind of world is this?”

Ron sat, too. From his robes, he pulled a small flask, and measured out two shots of firewhisky into their empty teacups. “Medicinal use only,” he muttered at Harry’s surprised expression. “And I’ll tell you what kind of world it is- a world that hasn’t let us, and you most of all, be children for a long time now.”

“Cheers,” Harry said sourly, and they drank.

A few minutes of silence followed, which was interrupted with the arrival at the door of Tonks. Following her were Neville, Susan, Ginny, Hermione, and Luna.They all had rucksacks and book-bags, and Neville was carrying a huge carton of paper sacks with a delicious oily steam rising from them.

“Sorry I’m late, Harry,” Tonks said, moving everyone through the door and counting noses to make sure she hadn’t misplaced anyone. “Thought it might be a good idea to stop for fish and chips at the takeaway, since it’s already getting on and it might not be wise to head back out.”

“Tonks,” Ron said, eying the bags Neville had started handing out, “your security measures meet with my complete and wholehearted approval.”

“Well, everyone,” Harry said, letting his arm wrap around Tonks’s waist. “Welcome to Carnaby Street.”

While their friends ate, Susan made her way over to where Tonks and Harry were sitting on the couch.

“It’s going to feel strange here, without Auntie and the girls,” she noted glumly.

“She’s packed everything out.” Tonks spoke softly, trying to give Harry and Susan some time to adjust to the changes. “She’s at Grimmauld, but I think that’s temporary. She was talking about looking up an old school friend abroad. Maybe riding this war out overseas. Canada, maybe.”

Harry looked gutted. His last direct ties to Sirius, his surrogate relationship with Susan’s aunt, his goddaughters, all gone. At least it was, he hoped temporary.

“So,” Susan said, back to business. “Have you thought about sleeping arrangements for this lot? We could go boys and girls, or couples.”

Tonks grinned, and gave her an unsubtle elbow in the ribs. “It’s the same thing to you, isn’t it?”

Susan had the decency to blush slightly, then added, “I’d prefer to have my girlfriend to myself, and not to share with Luna and Hermione. Though I think Luna might not mind that so horribly…”

It was Tonks’s turn to blush.

“Tonks and I will take Auntie’s suite, unless you and Ginny want it?” Harry waited for Susan’s shrug. “Thanks. I can use the extra room for planning and setting up a better potion station.”

“Ginny and I will take my room, obviously,” Susan said. “So is it Neville and Luna, or Neville and Ron? Hermione’s the odd woman out either way. Oh, and you should know, it looks like Neville and Luna’s breakup didn’t last. She said if she was going to be killed this summer, she’d rather spend it with him than without him, and he caved at once.”

“Good man,” Harry said. “Why hold off against a future we may none of us have. So I guess Neville and Luna in my old room, Hermione in the study, and Ron… what, couch? Or the training room, you reckon?”

Susan looked over to where Ron was sitting, very close to Hermione, while eating his fish and chips and chatting with Neville. Neither he nor Hermione were actively paying attention to the other, but they were very close, and neither seemed inclined to move away.

“Why don’t we just trust Ron to figure out what’s best for himself, eh? I’ll show him where to find extra blankets and things.” Susan stood, and stretched. “On that note, I’ll start cleaning up, and let people know where they’re heading for the time being.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” Tonks said, looking forlornly at her empty plate. “Since there's no more dinner, that is.”

“Well,” Susan said casually, “there might be a few liters of ice cream in the freezer for afters, once we get this mess cleared up.”

“Ice cream?” Tonks was on her feet so fast she might have apparated there.

“Can’t let the sisterhood down, can I?” Susan grinned, and they began cleaning up from dinner, taking orders for ice cream, and getting bags moved to the various rooms.

As he was helping Neville carry bags upstairs, he saw Hermione ducking out of the study, and they made eye contact for a moment. He knew that he really needed to talk with her, but there had been no time, with the battle, the funeral, and the planning against Voldemort. If she and Harry were to be living under one roof again, there was a conversation that really could not be put off much longer.

She held his gaze for a moment, and then they both glanced away. One struggle at a time, Harry thought.


	2. Hearth and Home, Byd and Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione answers a question some of you have been asking for a long time.
> 
> Harry and Hermione answer a question some of you have had for an entire volume of this series.
> 
> Luna answers the most important question Neville may ever ask.
> 
> You got questions? We got answers. Mostly.
> 
> Please remember to kudos, bookmark, and comment. The algorithm must be fed!
> 
> Best, Killjoy

2\. Hearth and Home, Byd and Blood

Settling the entire group into the flat on Carnaby Street was not without incident. Tonks, after a long night of training with Hermione and Susan, had gone to her old room from habit, and walked in on Ron changing, more to his embarrassment than hers. Hermione, offered Tonks’s old room originally, had made the study so much her home that Harry could often be found pacing outside her door at odd hours, waiting for her to be “decent” so that he could access his library of reference books. Luna, after almost a month, was still not convinced that clothing needed to be worn around the flat, including when she went to shower or use the loo.

Overall, however, things had settled down. Once Tonks and Harry had all their things moved to Amelia’s old suite, Ron was able to give up sleeping in the training room. Harry found it more satisfying to cook for eight than he had for two or three. Most importantly, Susan had taken up leadership, organizing cleaning, shopping, meals, training, and even some privacy for the various couples from time to time, which lifted a burden from Harry he had not realized he was carrying. 

It was Susan who first commented to Harry about his ‘Hermione problem.’

“So, what is going on with you two?” Susan sat down next to Harry as he was reading on the sofa, while watching her, across the room, playing Go with Ron. She had taken to the game much more quickly than she had chess, and they both were so much better than the others that no one else would match with either of them.

“What do you mean?” Harry read the sentence in his book he had been rereading for the last quarter of an hour. “I have no idea. Nothing.”

“You can’t have it both ways, Harry,” Susan chided him softly. “If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can’t be sure there’s nothing going on, can you?”

He sighed and put down his book, carefully marking his place.

“It’s something that happened at Hogwarts, during the night Dumbledore... during that night.” He took off his glasses and absently rubbed a cloth across them, even though they had recently been charmed to repel all dirt, smudges, and fog. It was an old habit, and he was in an old frame of mind at the moment.

“Well, you can’t go on, whatever it is.” Susan stood up. “Ron, get dressed for Muggle London, we’re doing some shopping and you know the rules, no one travels alone.”

Ron, currently waging a largely ineffective defense against Hermione’s attack, hopped to his feet. “Great idea. Harry, you coming?”

“He can’t,” Susan said quickly. “He has a research question that’s bugging him. He needs to talk to Hermione.”

“What, no, there’s nothing that can’t wait—” Harry stammered. He thought ungenerous thoughts at Susan, which grew worse when Hermione replied.

“Excellent. There were some books I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”

“Shouldn’t you wait for Tonks and Ginny to get back from the Burrow?” Harry was grasping at straws. The thought of confronting Hermione with his suspicions was as attractive as lipstick on a mountain troll. Despite his protestations, he was soon alone with Hermione. Neville and Luna were outside on the deck, where Neville had started a small box garden and was cultivating some magically useful herbs with Luna’s help. They might be out there for hours.

Hermione regarded Harry calmly. The flat seemed very quiet.

“So, the thing is,” Harry said, then faltered. “I’ve been thinking about the night that Dumbledore died, and afterward.”

“I slipped, didn’t I?” Hermione sighed, and she seemed somehow very much older and sadder than she had been a moment before. “Ah, yes. I called you ‘my love,’ didn’t I? I was hoping you’d missed it, or thought you imagined it.”

He nodded. 

“I did think I’d imagined it, with everything. But what really convinced me was later, at the funeral. You laughed when I repeated Dumbledore’s ‘few words’ from our first year.”

She hung her head. “ _Brightest witch of her generation_ , they say. And then I go and laugh at a joke I shouldn’t have remembered.”

Harry leaned forward and asked her directly, “Hermione, how long have you had your memories back?”

* * *

Ron had to hurry to keep up with Susan, despite his longer stride. They were heading into a grey-faced shop called Cotswold Outdoor, which seemed to have various supplies for rock climbing, kayaking, and generally sleeping rough in a camping fashion, Muggle-style. When he managed to catch up, he spoke to Susan quietly.

“Why this shop instead of, well, one of _our_ stores? Won’t this all be, you know, Muggle things?”

“Which is why it’s unlikely to be under observation, and its products are not going to be tracked by the Ministry. I know we don’t have all our plans yet, but I can’t imagine we’ll be spending all our time at the flat, will we? So this trip is to see what they have we might find useful.”

As they looked around at stoves powered by jellied petrol, sleeping bags that zipped together to form a bed for two, knives with everything from a saw to a corkscrew, Ron again appreciated the ingenuity forced upon Muggles by their inability to call upon magic to solve their problems. A number of times he wished fervently that he could show an item on display to his father.

The more he learned about the two worlds, Muggle and magical, the more Ron understood that his father’s love of all things Muggle-related was not merely a random eccentricity, which it certainly was, but also a desire to make a connection with something outside his own day to day life. Arthur Weasley had a respectable job which he clearly loved, a wife he loved more still, and a home and family which, while not rich in coin, was rich in those qualities he found important.

Ron shrugged and looked around with a guilty start. Here he was, on the run, plotting war, and getting all misty at the thought of his dad. He must just miss home and mum’s cooking, he decided. That was it.

* * *

Hermione watched the way that Harry was absent-mindedly fidgeting with the pendant which was wrapped around his wrist, the one literal keepsake of their time together. She had not noticed him without it ever since her attack, but this was the first time in a very long time he seemed to be unable to let it go. She continued her story.

“Bits and pieces here and there, but I wasn’t even sure if they were real memories or just stories I had learned so well they seemed real to me. But all that changed the day we all dueled against you in the Room of Requirement.” She sighed. I was so angry with you, but really with myself. It was Voldemort all over again, the feeling that I knew what to do and couldn’t make it happen. I used Sectum Sempra, and you hit me with that stunner.”

“I thought I’d killed you,” Harry said, remembering Hermione falling, hitting her head on the stone floor, the sight of her blood.

“More like you knocked something back into place. Oh, not literally, of course, but the blow, the emotions, fear, frustration, embarrassment, suddenly the story of Voldemort defeating me wasn't just a story anymore. It was a memory again.” She looked down, a little wistfully. “Not all at once, but like dominoes falling, faster and faster over the next few days. A few days later, I couldn’t sleep, my brain was fitting together all the memories of the past and knitting them up to my memories since the hospital, like sewing together two different quilts. You came down, and you said I could always talk to you. I’m sure you—”

“I remember,” Harry said suddenly. “You said something about us not being ready for promises like that.”

She smiled. “I did. I so wanted you at that moment, wanted to tell you everything, to take you in my arms, to hear you tell me that you loved me and that everything was going to be alright. I nearly said something, but fortunately, you left, off to start your run.”

“But why _didn’t_ you say something? Didn’t I have a right to know?” Harry was agitated, and his voice was recriminating. His face, however, was fraught with confusion, heartache. She wanted to cry, seeing him. Instead, she held firm to her explanation.

“What could I say, Harry?” It was her turn to feel darkness creeping in to her feelings and thoughts. “We had worked so hard to move on. So much had changed. I’d managed to rebuild a whole life without you at the center of it, a life that honestly was much more about me, and what was good for me, and what I wanted. Was it selfish to want to hold on to my own life, when I didn't even know how you felt about me?”

“You had to know,” Harry said urgently. “You must have known.”

“Tonks,” said Hermione softly, as kindly as she could bring herself to say the name.

Harry’s face fell, in a way that would have been comic at another time. “But, you and I— She was—”

“She’s been critical to your life since the day you met her, and you share a bond with her that you never did with me, from the beginning. I think you and she were the only two surprised that it worked out as it did between you, once I was, erm, out of the way.” She felt a tear on her cheek. She hadn’t realized she was crying until the telltale tickle of the tear slid down towards her jaw.

“But, I loved you, Hermione.” Harry’s voice was raw, and his eyes were welling with unshed tears. “I never stopped loving you.”

“But I stopped loving _you_ , Harry, for a while.” Hermione felt the knot in her stomach unwind. She’d said what she never imagined she’d be able to say, the thing that she had avoided this moment for. “And I still love you now, in a fashion, and I hope you love me, or at least think kindly of me.”

“Of course I—”

“No,” she cut him off. “Please, this is so hard, let me say it. We don’t belong together. I look at you and Tonks, and I see something we never had. You loved me, Harry, but you were never good for me, like you’re good for her. She deserves you, and I deserve better. Someone who loves me the way you love her, grownup love. Partners. Family. Best friends.”

“I’m sorry, Hermione.” Harry’s tears were falling in earnest now. “I didn’t know any better. I’d never loved anyone before.”

“Nor had I, really,” she said. “You swept me off my feet. But now, when I look for love, I look for someone who cares for me, little things, little kindnesses. You were great at grand gestures, and it was exciting. I’ll always remember all those moments. But now, I want something else. Something more…”

“Ron,” Harry said, “He’s turned from a bit of a git into good bloke, starting with looking after you.”

“Oh, Ronald’s still a git,” Hermione said with a blush. “But I hope, maybe someday, he might be my git. Is that setting my bar too high?”

Harry reached over and took her hands in his, touching her for the first time since they had sat down together to talk. “He’d be lucky to have you, Hermione. Anyone would.”

She laughed a little, nervously, and held on tight to his hands. She was surprised when he pulled away, and saw that he was unwrapping the necklace from around his wrist. He’d worn it so long the skin was pale underneath.

“What are you—oh, Harry,” she stammered. “You should keep that. I didn’t mean for you to—”

He held the necklace out to her with one hand while he covered her lips with the fingers of the other, making a soft shushing noise. Her hand closed over his, taking the necklace, but something happened when his fingers touched her lips. Her eyes went wide, then softened, her lids becoming heavy.

Harry found himself with one hand holding hers, both holding the chain of the necklace. His other hand somehow had found her cheek, cupping her face. He leaned forward.

She leaned into him, turning on the couch to move closer. Their lips touched, lingered, opened. She was kissing him, pulling him closer. His tongue brushed her lips, found her own, danced in between them. The kiss grew deeper, urgent, passionate. She took his lower lip between her teeth, she pushed her body against him, she felt their conjoined hands settle between her breasts and felt her heartbeat echoing, her blood roaring in her ears.

She gasped, and his eyes flew open. She felt the change in him, and her eyes opened to see him, a look of passion warring with fear, and they both pulled back. Her pulse was racing and he was visibly short of breath. Her lips felt swollen, bruised with lusty desire, but she also felt a frisson of fear, a tingling down her back that screamed out danger, that screamed out warning.

They both stood, awkwardly, pulling apart, but before either could say anything, the door swung open. Susan and Ron, carrying packages from shopping, as well as groceries from the market, made a rowdy entrance into the room. Ron was carrying a rather large set of parcels for Susan, and could not see Harry and Hermione directly. Susan, pausing for just a moment in the doorway with an appraising look in her eye, was nearly run down, and made rather a production of getting Ron, the shopping, and herself into the flat and the door closed behind.

“Hullo, all!” Ron said cheerfully. “You get your research questions answered, Harry?”

“What? Oh, yes, yes I think I did.” He looked at Hermione, and she gave him a small grin, then turned to Ron and Susan.

“Goodness, what on earth do you have there? I thought this was a scouting trip, Susan?”

“Well,” Susan said, heading into the kitchen looking for a lemonade, “we scouted so successfully we bought a bunch of Muggle gear, bearnoculars and compasses, and a Swedish Army knife for each of the boys. Oh, and I think Ron got something for you as well, Hermione.”

Hermione took a step towards Ron, as he made an unsuccessful attempt to quiet Susan. She and Harry each had a hand on the chain of the necklace, still, and when she stepped forward, the chain parted. The pendant slid off the chain to the floor. Hermione quickly bent and grabbed the periwinkle stone as she moved over to Ron.

“A present, Ronald? For me?”

“Well,” he groused, “it was _supposed_ to be a surprise. It’s a book light.”

Ron turned to Harry and explained carefully, “Muggles make little lamps just for reading, like in bed, with battery and electricities. I know she can just use magic, but I thought a Muggle thing might be, you know, a bit of home.”

“That’s great, Ron,” Harry said, still feeling his pulse racing. “I have some notes I wanted to put down, before I forget. Excuse me.”

He fairly ran into the bedroom suite he shared with Tonks, and threw himself on the bed. He stared at the ceiling, trying to sort out his emotions and thoughts from the last hour.

When Tonks and Ginny returned from visiting the Burrow, Harry was in the shower. Tonks asked if he wanted company, and frowned when he declined without even making a joke. It had been a stressful spring. Maybe he just needed a little break, she thought.

* * *

Susan was staring at the ceiling, wishing she was asleep. Of course, sleep came with dreams, and her dreams had not been good to her of late. Still, it would be a welcome respite from the tense silence coming from the other side of the bed. She took a deep breath, but it came out as a sigh.

“You could talk to me,” Ginny said, without rolling over to face her. The red-headed witch’s compact bum was pressed against Susan’s hip, but their position was anything but intimate. There had not been much in the way of intimacy since Susan had left the hospital wing after being attacked by the Death Eater, Dolohov.

“Sorry. I was hoping you were sleeping. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Bugger what you hoped, Susan.” Ginny did turn at this, her lithe form spinning under the light blankets, her lips meeting Susan’s shoulder so that her words buzzed against the naked flesh there. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Leave?” Susan’s voice, low in the dark, cracked as she spoke. “Did I do something? Do you want to go?”

“What the hell has gotten into you?” Ginny was frustrated, angry even. “What I want is for you to stop acting like I’m a stranger who wandered in out the road, like you’ve stopped loving me.”

Susan turned at that, scooting down in the bed so her face was opposite Ginny’s. “Is that what you think, that I don’t love you?”

“You say you do,” Ginny conceded. “You say all the right things. But at night, you kiss me like my mum tucking me in at night, not my lover. I love you, Susan, and I’ve never loved anyone before. Now things are strange, and I’m scared.”

“I’m sorry, truly I am,” Susan said, pressing her lips to Ginny’s. Her partner shook off the kiss.

“I don’t want words or kisses, I want you to really talk to me. What is going on?” Ginny was doggedly determined, and Susan knew when she was like this there was no shaking her.

“It sounds so stupid, if I say it out loud.” Susan turned back to stare at the ceiling, invisible in the darkness. “Do you ever just look up, like, at the ceiling or the sky, and lie still? At first, it’s like you’re pressing down on the ground, or the bed. But if you hold still, and wait, it’s the bed that’s pushing you up. You’re on a perfectly formed slab, shaped around your body. All beneath you is emptiness, and all above you is unknown, and you’re pushed up, rising, flying forward into the dark. You ever do that, Ginny?”

“No, but I will.” Ginny rolled onto her back, and stared upwards in silence. She waited, and soon she felt it, the push in the back, and she was flying upwards with Susan. She reached a hand over and felt her fingers entwine with Susan’s.

“Wherever we’re going,” Ginny whispered, “I want to go with you. Now, can you tell me what’s wrong? I promise it’s not silly.”

“When the twins were born, and your mother came here, remember?” Susan asked softly. “I never thought about that, about motherhood. With me being what I am, it didn’t seem like it was something to even dream of, even if I had wanted it.”

“We’re young, love,” Ginny whispered, holding tightly to her hand. “We have a long time to work that out if it’s something you want.”

“I missed,” Susan said hoarsely. “I’ve never been more than a day or two late, and I missed completely. Madame Pomphrey warned me this might happen, when I was hurt. It wasn’t just my guts. I said I didn’t care, I was just worried about getting better. But now, it seems real, like I’m missing something, like I've lost something important.”

Ginny was quiet for a long while.

“We can take you to St. Mungo’s. Get a checkup, they’ll tell you it’s nothing to worry about, I’m sure.”

“We’re laying low, Ginny. I’m sure either the Ministry or Voldemort is watching St. Mungo’s. And it’s not like my life is in danger.”

“It feels like it is.”

“I love you, you know.” Susan’s voice was so soft Ginny could barely hear her now, even as close as they were. “When Hannah died, my first thought was, that could have been me. But when I got torn open, and I was lying there, my thought was, that could have been Ginny. I was glad that I was dying instead of you. I didn’t want to live in a world without you. Isn’t that selfish of me?”

Ginny pulled Susan tight. “You’re not selfish. You’re a young witch in love, just like me. And I would not have you any other way.”

“I’m so lucky that I found you,” Susan said, more clearly.

“Prove it.” Ginny waited, her lips puckered and her eyes closed.

Susan kissed her and was kissed in return, and the world disappeared beneath them, and they rose together up into the sky. They could not tell if it was gravity pulling them down, or the earth pushing them up, and in the darkness, they praised and pleased each other, and shared love.

* * *

Hermione heard a soft knock at the door that connected the study where she was sleeping to the bedroom that once belonged to Tonks, and was now Ronald’s. She reached for her wand to raise the lights.

“Come in,” she said. The door cracked open, and Ronald peaked in.

“Hello, are you decent? Am I waking you?”

She smiled. “Of course not. I was just trying out your book light. It’s delightful.”

Ronald blushed a bit, and shuffled his feet awkwardly. With the bed folded down, there wasn’t much of the room left but bookshelves and a small trunk where Hermione kept her things.

“I’m glad you liked it. It was just, I dunno, something I thought you might like.”

She patted the bed next to her. “Please, sit. What can I do for you?”

He sat, tentatively, then realized he was resting against her hip, and scooted slightly forward, his long legs nearly putting his knees into the bookshelf.

“I was looking for a book, actually. Something about “Magical Culture and Customs.” By Widdershins, I think. Luna was down asking me some questions, and I, erm, I was a bit out of my depth. The Lovegoods and the Weasleys are some of the older, more traditional families around our way, and she was asking—well, I just wanted to check something in the book.”

“I know that book. It’s still on my ‘to read’ list, but I’m not in a hurry. I think it’s on the other side of the bed, here.” She looked down near her feet and spotted the book on the shelf very close to the bed on that side. “Yes, that one with the blue binding on the bottom there. You’ll have to reach down for it, I don't think I can get it from here.”

Ron clambered awkwardly around and past her, trying to reach the inconvenient shelf without touching her in the process. She grabbed his belt and hauled him over so that he was lying across her legs, his hands in easy reach of the book.

“For heaven’s sake, Ronald, I’m not made of glass. You aren’t going to break me, I promise.”

He sat up, book in hand, and tried to turn without dropping it, falling off the end of her bed, or rolling over her and squashing her flat. In the process, his free hand came down on her thigh, and he pushed off to get turned around, only to blush again when he realized where his hand was placed.

“Oh, sorry!”

“It’s fine, I told you,” Hermione said, swinging her legs out from under the blanket to turn, sitting next to Ron on the bed. Her legs were bare, and her nightshirt had ridden up when she turned, exposing a generous but not indecent amount of her left leg and a bit of her hip to Ron’s eyes, though he quickly looked away.

“Oh goodness, I’m not going to bite you,” she said a bit crossly. “You saw a lot more of me than this when I was in hospital, I’m sure.”

“I never looked,” he said, searching her eyes for belief. “I mean, not on purpose. I was a gentleman, or tried to be, I suppose.”

She put her hand on his arm.

“I have a serious question for you,” she said.

“Yes?” He swallowed nervously.

“Why have you never asked me out? Am I… unattractive?”

He gawked at her, jaw dropped. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever met.”

She smiled, and her smile turned to laughter when she saw the panic on his face as he took in that he had spoken those words aloud. He tensed as if to flee. She tightened her grip on his arm.

“I’m very flattered that you think so, Ronald. But you didn’t answer my original question. So, it’s not my looks. Is my personality not appealing? I’m lacking something important that you might be looking for in a girl, is that it?”

“Hermione,” he said, wiping his sleeve across his suddenly warm brow, “stop being daft. You’re amazing. Kind, funny, smart, caring, loyal. I mean, a bloke would be crazy not to want to go out with you.”

“I was sort of afraid of that,” she said, looking down into her lap, her expression guarded. “If it’s not my looks, nor my personality, it’s my history. It’s because I was, erm, intimate before the attack, with Harry, isn’t it?”

“Well,” he said, taking a breath and trying to organize his thoughts. It was a lot easier in chess or Go, where there were rules about when and how you could be threatened. This was much worse.

“I see,” she said, and she released his arm. “I can see that it might be a problem, that kind of history. I mean, I wouldn’t hold it against you, sleeping with Lavender Brown, but I guess it’s different for boys.”

“Hermione,” he gasped, “I never slept with Lavender. I mean, yeah, we fooled around a bit, but we both know it wasn’t the right time, that we weren’t… I never slept with Lavender. Or anyone.”

“Oh,” she blushed. “I’m so embarrassed. It never, I mean, I just imagined—not once?”

She shook her head. “Forget it, it’s none of my business. What you must think of me.”

“I think you’re amazing.” he reached out, carefully, and took her hand in his. “And I’d like to answer your first question– if it’s not too late.”

She looked at him sidelong, fearful, and holding her breath.

“I never asked you out,” he said, “because if you had told me no, it would have broken my heart, and I was a coward.”

They sat there for a moment, holding hands, neither saying anything for a while, just letting everything that had been said sink in.

“Ronald,” she said softly, “just so you know, if you were to ask me out, I would not say no.”

“You wouldn’t, eh?”

“It might break your heart,” she said solemnly, “and that would certainly break mine.”

“That’s good to know,” Ron said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to wait until tomorrow. If you were to say yes, we would probably kiss, and want to do something, or go out together, or something. I’d like the night to sort out all that in my head. I hope your offer is still available tomorrow?”

She grinned. “Ooh, I think if you get up early you might just sneak in under the wire.”

“Result!” He chuckled, and she felt him relax. She too felt a weight lifting.

“So I have to ask, if I may, what did Luna want to ask you about?” Hermione leaned comfortably against Ron, and he carefully put an arm around her in a familiar but not overtly intimate way.

“I promised her I’d keep it quiet until she was ready.” Ron sighed softly, enjoying Hermione’s closeness to him, her warmth against his side. “Besides, you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

* * *

“Tonks,” Harry asked quietly in the dark, “why are you pretending to sleep?”

“I’m not,” her muffled voice came from where she lay next to him, face down on her pillow. “Anyway, how could you tell.”

“You make a different noise when you sleep. You’re being too quiet, so I know you’re awake. Plus, now you’re talking with me.”

She sat up and turned on a gentle light. She looked at Harry suspiciously.

“What do you mean, noise in my sleep?” Her eyes grew wide. “Are you saying I snore?!” 

“No, no!” Harry replied too quickly, and her face and hair went scarlet. “Just a tiny little bit, I wouldn’t even call it that. More like a purr. You make a lovely, delightful, very ladylike purring sound sometimes.”

“And when did you plan on mentioning this, eh?” She sat up and folded her arms, which unfortunately for Harry simply cradled her naked breasts, making it difficult for him to focus on what she was saying. She followed his eyes down and raised her arms to better cover her generous assets. With a scowl, she concentrated a moment, and the “If Found, Return To Harry Potter” portion of her tattoo faded away. Never a good sign.

“It never came up. It doesn’t bother me. You wouldn’t be my Puma without your purr,” he said, inching closer to her. “Can you find it in your heart to forgive me, my dearest?”

“So what happened with you and Hermione today?” Tonks asked suddenly.

Harry froze like a deer in headlights. “What do you mean, what happened?”

“Well, something happened. I thought you’d want to talk to me about it, but instead, you cleared off straight to bed. And then you lay facing away like the Great Wall of Shite, closing me out, keeping me away.”

“How did you know?” Harry asked, his voice low, and clearly guilty. “I mean, that it was about Hermione?”

“You can be pretty thick, Harry. I know every inch of your body, better than my own really because yours mostly stays the same. I know every burn, every scar, every scrape. And I know when the necklace you had given Hermione that has been wrapped around your arm every moment since that day at the Ministry, I know when it’s suddenly gone and you’ve got a tan-line all across your wrist. I’m an Auror, trained to notice things, Potter.” Her voice was calm, and she was hiding her emotions better than he had ever seen her do. Her hair was a dull brown, her eyes flat, her mouth an even line.

“Of course. I never thought you were anything but brilliant, Tonks. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything.” He sat up next to her, and looked straight ahead, into the distance, his heart focused on something his eyes could not see. “Hermione and I had a long talk today while you were out.”

“I see.”

“We just had some things which needed to be said. Some ghosts that needed to be put to rest.” Harry sighed. “It should have happened a long time ago. It wasn’t fair to you that she was still in my mind that way, that I never really said goodbye to the past.”

“And did you? Say goodbye?”

“Yes. There’s nothing between Hermione and I now, but friendship. I mean, I’ll always have a spot for her in my heart, but not romantically. It’s not love. You’re the only woman I love, Nymphadora.”

She was silent for a long time.

“You kissed her,” Tonks said suddenly.

“Yes,” Harry said, bracing himself but feeling he had to tell the truth, or nothing he ever said to Tonks again would mean anything.

“She kissed you back.”

“Yes.”

Tonks’s voice sounded tough, but there was a hitch in her breath that told Harry before he looked that she was crying. 

“Is that all?”

Harry had been asking himself that question all night, and he answered neither too slowly as if he was unsure, nor too quickly, as if he was trying to cover up his real feelings.

“That was all, and it was goodbye.” Harry closed his eyes and hoped for the best. “I didn’t know how to tell you, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Well, you have.” She sniffled. “I mean, you haven’t broken my heart, you haven’t driven me away. But yeah, it hurts, and it hurts that I had to ask you, that I had to push over that rock.”

“Is there anything I can ever do to make it up to you?” Harry tried to keep the desperation out of his voice, but there was enough pushing through that Tonks could tell he was serious.

“Yes,” she said after a moment. “Tonight, just hold me. Let me feel that you’re here, just for me, and that you’re giving me what I need.”

“That I can do,” he agreed eagerly.

“Oh, one more thing, Potter,” she said sternly. “If we’re both still here in the morning, fix me a huge cup of coffee, and maybe a plate of toast, and then shag me silly so we can neither of us walk straight.”

Harry smiled, as they snuggled down together, spooned close with his arms around her, her head leaning back into his chest and shoulder. His mouth came up to her ear.

“That’s a deal,” he breathed into her ear, in a fashion that sent a shiver down her spine and tested her resolve to make him wait until morning. Soon, however, she was softly purring against him.

“You’re a luckier man than you know, Potter,” he told himself. “Don’t ever fuck this up.”

* * *

Luna and Neville were sitting at the table early the next morning. Neville was wearing a dressing gown with the Longbottom signet on the breast, and dipping toast soldiers into a boiled egg. Luna was wearing a knit blanket thrown over her shoulders, which was open at the throat and showing a fair bit of cleavage. She was drinking herbal tea and nibbling on a large slice of bread with honey.

Ron came and sat down, pouring himself a cup of tea and rubbing at his eyes.

“Morning,” he groused.

“A lovely morning to you, Ron,” Luna said with a beaming smile. She seemed very pleased about something. As Ron sipped his tea, he realized that she was very much naked underneath her knit blanket, and her nipples had poked out through the loose weave. She was very pleased about something, indeed.

Ron grimaced and managed by means of a somewhat forced swallow to avoid spitting out his tea in surprise. Luna was a free spirit, and only her total lack of guile and artifice allowed her to get away with many of the things she did, or said, or in this case, wore.

“Morning,” Neville said brightly, having swallowed his bit of toast. “Don’t usually see you up this early. Everything okay?”

“Well, I thought so, until about half an hour ago when the walls of my bedroom started flashing different colors like a Muggle nightclub. If my brothers’ fireworks flashed half that many colors they’d be rich men, I promise you.”

“That’s odd,” Neville said.

“I think it’s rather sweet,” said Luna, looking briefly towards the downstairs suite where Harry and Tonks now stayed. “I’m glad you’re here, though. Did you find the answer to my question from last night?”

Ron yawned and nodded. “I did, yeah. Not sure what it helps, though. The old ceremonies aren’t illegal or invalid, they just went out of fashion. Hermione says you should probably send a certified owl to the register at the ministry, just so it can’t be contested later. I didn’t tell her anything more, though. Does that help?”

“Thank you, Ron. And thank Hermione as well.”

“You can thank me yourself,” said Hermione, as he came down the stairs. “What am I being thanked for, exactly?”

“For all your help with my research, of course.” Luna looked at Neville. “Now?”

He paled, and put down his toast. “Right now?”

“Oh, yes, please!” Luna stood, and in doing so dropped her forgotten knit blanket to the floor.

“ _Oi!_ ” Ron said, putting one hand over his eyes.

“ _Luna!_ ” Hermione fussed, rushing forward and reaching for the blanket. 

“Breakfast and a show!” Ginny’s voice called out with humor from the stairs as she and Susan followed Hermione down to the main floor.

Neville, the tallest of them by a fair margin, had stood, his red and gold dressing gown now seeming positively regal compared to the mishmash of robes, pajamas, and other night-clothes worn by his surrounding friends. He took a moment to look Luna up and down, from her toes, adorned with silver rings and daisy-yellow polish, to her cute navel, winking like a little oyster, to her coral-tipped breasts, small and proud in the warm air, to her eyes, grey-blue and wide and pure as the sea after a storm, and finally her floating cloud of platinum hair, pale as moonlight and twice as beautiful.

He knelt, falling to one knee, and so much shorter was she that he now looked her nearly eye to eye. He took both of her hands in his, and he spoke in his beautiful, clear tenor voice, the words old, ancient, yet still familiar.

“ _Luna Ariel Lovegood, will ye take me, Neville Evelyn Longbottom, to be youre handfast husband, to joyn together always and forever, so long as we both shal live?_ ”

She nearly sang, rather than spoke, her answer similarly in reply.

“ _My dearest Neville Evelyn Longbottom, I, Luna Ariel Lovegood, will gladly hold ye, hearth and home, byd and blood, al of my days as youre handfast wife, so long as we both shal live._ ”

Harmione, standing in some confusion and holding up Luna’s blanket, suddenly got that look on her face she had when she knew the answer to a question, and her only doubt was getting her hand raised quickly enough. She dropped the blanket and pressed her hands to her heart.

“ _It ys so for I byar witness, by blood and oath yn honor!_ ”

She looked around, and spotted Ron, staring slack-jawed at the spectacle unfolding before him, teacup forgotten in his hand.

“Ronald, a broomstick, quickly!”

He stared at her a moment, and then hurried to the cupboard, bringing forth an old Cleansweep that Amelia Black had left behind when she moved. He handed it to Hermione, who lay it down beside Neville and Luna. Neville rose, and still holding tightly to Luna’s hands, they both did a sort of hop over the broomstick. There was a muted crack, like someone apparating, and a warm, golden light shown briefly from Neville and Luna, then faded like the afterglow of a lightning bolt.

“What the bloody blazes was _that_?” Ginny asked in the silence that followed. 

Her brother, having managed to connect the odd spectacle unfolding before them with the traditional ceremonies and practices of old English wizardry, said rather seriously, “Well, Neville? Aren’t you going to, you know, kiss the bride?”

Smiling, without a hint of awkwardness or blush, Neville took Luna’s face in his large hands, leaning down to put his lips to hers. With less dignity but even more enthusiasm, she threw her arms around his neck and pushed forward with the kiss very much on her own terms.

As the fully nude Luna Longbottom energetically kissed her husband, Susan, Ginny, Hermione, and Ron all began to applaud, softly at first, but more raucously as the nuptial kiss continued.

Tonks, her hair a wreck, her lips somewhat swollen, and her face flushed, leaned in the doorway, clutching one of Harry’s shirts closed at her waist, regarding the sight before her. Harry, with a series of scratches and a few visible bite-marks down his shoulder and wearing only his jeans, stood behind, looking over her shoulder.

“Told you it was a mistake, skipping the coffee,” Tonks said.

“Hey, it was your idea,” Harry replied. “I would say we appear to have missed something.”

* * *

_Dear Gran,_

_I hope this owl finds you well, and that Uncle Algie has been checking in on you as he promised. I imagine that it must be hard for you, being alone in the house, and I hope you are still able to visit Mum and Dad. If so, please tell them that I love them and think of them, always. I would have written sooner but it took some time to arrange a safe relay of owls._

_Well, “hiding out” is proving a challenge. For obvious reasons we are unable to use the floo network, or to apparate, being underage, but we’ve managed so far. I can’t say more here without putting you in possible danger, and I know you’ll understand._

_I wanted to share some exciting news. I have gotten married. She’s a nice girl, a witch from a well-known family, Luna Lovegood, of the Otterly-St. Catchpole Lovegoods. They are neighbors to the Weasleys. I have mentioned her previously, and she sent you that jam at Christmas, the one you liked. At any rate, her research has discovered that the old handfast traditions are not only still legal, but that as a married couple we are both emancipated and considered legal adults under Wizard law. I’d bet that you knew this, but it was news to me. Luna argued that we would be free to defend ourselves with magic and to apparate without the Trace. There are other benefits, such as not being forced to provide testimony against each other and such like._

_I’ll be honest, Gran. Security is just a bonus for me. I really love this girl, and I believe in my heart that she loves me as well. I hope when all of this is over, we can all get together and have a proper introduction. Until then, stay safe, and be well._

_Your loving grandson, Neville_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wizarding Handfast marriages are based on a blend of old English and Colonial American traditions, along with a few twists of my own. If it makes it easier, imagine them as "common law" marriages, or your nation's equivalent, if any.
> 
> translation, more or less:  
> "Luna Ariel Lovegood, will you take me, Neville Evelyn Longbottom, to be your handfast husband, to join together always and forever, so long as we both shall live?"
> 
> "My dearest Neville Evelyn Longbottom I, Luna Ariel Lovegood, will gladly hold you, hearth and home, bed and blood, all of my days as your handfast wife, so long as we both shall live."
> 
> and finally:  
> "It is so for I bear witness, by blood and oath in honor."
> 
> So now Ginny and Harry are the only unemancipated underage wizards on the team. Maybe they'll get married next? The world is a crazy, crazy place, eh? I think. I have to check my notes on Ron and Susan.
> 
> EDIT 23 August 2020: small changes in punctuation and the correction of Neville's middle name, with a thankful shoutout to reader n01 for the catch. This is what I get for writing at 3 AM.


	3. Portents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mild Spoilers.
> 
> In this chapter, events in the larger world continue to impact the friends and families of our merry band of rebels, in five vignettes:
> 
> A Tale of Horcruxes  
> The Mission Comes First  
> Dudley’s Return  
> The Violation of Pandora Lovegood  
> Augusta’s Last Stand

**3\. Portents**

Ron Weasley stood in the training room at the Carnaby Street flat, facing a blackboard which had been transfigured from the back wall. He was nervous, and took a quick sip from a flask that he hoped no one behind him saw.

His friends and fellow rebels sat gathered around, shifting nervously. Some engaged in forced chitchat, others sat in grim silence. Luna and Neville sat quietly, oddly peaceful in the eye of the emotional storm around them. It was time for a council of war.

“Well, Ron, I guess you’re up,” Harry said at last, having judged that any more waiting would just heighten rather than ease the tension at this point. “Why don’t you take it from the top.”

“Hullo, everyone,” Ron swallowed nervously, his mouth suddenly dry. “I suppose you know why we’re here. Everyone knows some of what’s been going on, and what’s been planned. Some know a lot less than others. Tonight we’re going to be sure that we’re all on the same page, and that we all have a plan for moving forward, for bringing down You Know Who and his servants, and hopefully walking away safely on the other side.”

“Make no mistake, friends,” Tonks said, from where she was standing to the side, her hands clasped behind her back, wearing her dragonskin coat and combat boots. “This is a war, and we’re not the heroes with all the resources and the support, we’re the scrappy underground. Ron and Harry have been working on this for a week, and you need to pay careful attention. If you’re confused, don’t try to hide it–ask questions, until you get answers you understand.”

“Thanks, Tonks,” Ron said, seeming a little calmer after the tough former-Auror’s words, He looked each of them carefully in the eye. “If you’re not up to this for any reason, health, moral qualms, or just too bloody terrified, now is the time to step out. We won’t think any less of you, but from this point on, we need to be committed.”

“I’ll think less of you” Ginny interjected, glaring around the room. “If you don’t want in on this, we don’t want you!”

“Ginny, please,” Harry said placatingly. “I admire your dedication, but we don’t want anyone here who doesn’t want to be here. It’s too important.”

“Well, I don’t want to be here,” Luna said, her calm voice causing the others to startle nevertheless, “but I wouldn’t care to be anywhere else, since this needs to be done.”

Ron nodded. “Well said. So if we’re all in together, here are the basics. I apologize that some of this is a review for some of you, but we need to see the whole board.”

He went on to explain about young Tom Riddle coming to the attention of Dumbledore, and Dumbledore’s concerns about the motives and stability of the young man. Riddle’s murderous youth, and his cunning manipulation of his school mates, his first followers, his original Death Eaters. 

He went on to explain the creation of the Horcruxes, and how Dumbledore and Harry had discovered his plans. Harry retold, in full detail for the first time, the details of his last hunt with Dumbledore, the bitter reality of the missing Horcrux, and the details of the battle, including the deaths of Dumbledore and Moody, Snape’s betrayal, and the Death Eaters’ escape.

“So, as horrifying as it is to believe,” Ron said with grim determination, “we now believe that You Know Who created seven Horcruxes, including whatever of his soul is left in his cursed body. Tom Riddle’s diary was the first we discovered. It’s important to note that when Harry destroyed the diary, a part of You Know Who’s soul was destroyed with it. As far as we know, he did not detect this, at least not directly. His soul must be so fractured and diminished at this point that there is not enough left in him to feel any single fraction dying.”

Harry spoke up. “This is a crucial point. It means that we can weaken him, piece by piece, by destroying his Horcruxes. If we can locate and destroy them all, he should be vulnerable.”

There was some excited discussion at this, but Ron cut them off.

“Don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves. These are incredibly dangerous magical artifacts, each with a fraction of his perverse and corrupt soul. They are very difficult to destroy even when we can locate them. Harry had to use the poison fang of a basilisk to destroy the diary, and it nearly killed him. Another Horcrux was the Marvolo family ring. Destroying that cursed Dumbledore so badly, it eventually contributed to his death. Even if there were no attack, he still might have died that night. And for all his faults, he was the strongest, most knowledgeable and powerful wizard of our lifetime, one of the greats.”

This quieted them down.

“So, what are the other five Horcruxes?” Neville was leaning forward in his chair, his face serious. The thin white-gold ring he now wore, matching the one he’d made for Luna, glimmered against his pale fingers as he clenched his hands together. “And how do we destroy them?”

“Four,” Hermione said, her first contribution to the discussion. “Six, plus the part of his soul he kept in himself. Minus the diary and the ring, leaves four.”

“The locket that Harry and Dumbledore went to recover was one, surely. It was tied to Salazar Slytherin,” Harry explained. Ron started writing on the chalkboard, listing the Horcruxes. “Dumbledore and I believed that Voldemort wanted to create Horcruxes linked to the four founders of Hogwarts. He never got the Sword of Gryffindor, but along with Slytherin’s locket, we are pretty sure he had something from Helga Hufflepuff and from Rowena Ravenclaw. Hermione, Luna, and I will be looking into that over the next few weeks.”

“Diary, Ring, locket, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw,” Ron listed. He turned. “For the sixth, we haven’t a clue yet. That’s the biggest missing piece, of all the pieces, so far.”

“Could a Horcrux be a living thing?” Tonks asked, suddenly.

“What, like a person?” Ron blinked. “I suppose. Hermione?”

She shrugged. “So long as it was something he expected to live, to be hard to kill, to have a close connection that he could control—”

“The snake,” Tonks said. “Harry, you’ve told me so many details from those terrible dreams, where you were in that great snake he has, what’s its name.”

“Nagini,” Harry said, frowning. “It certainly isn't an ordinary snake. It’s huge, intelligent, and totally faithful to Voldemort. Yeah, I can see him doing that. We can put that down as a probability.”

“Okay,” Susan said, all business. “We need to track down the Horcruxes tied to the other two founders, then we pick them off one by one.”

“And there’s the rub,” Ron said, “and the reason we’re doing this today. Harry thinks, and Hermione’s research supports this idea, that as each piece of You Know Who’s soul is destroyed, the chance of the piece that’s left in him feeling something grows. It might be a little, it might be a lot. We can’t tell. But it can’t be a coincidence that after two of his six Horcruxes were destroyed, he’s grown more active, more daring, and more dangerous, can it?”

“So, what do we do?” Ginny looked to Susan, then Ron, Harry, and the others in turn. “I mean, if he sees us coming, what’s to keep him from just taking his snake and going home? Or going into hiding somewhere we can’t follow, and starting it all again?”

“Simultaneous strikes,” Tonks said, rocking on her heels and eyeing the list of targets on the chalkboard critically. “Four Horcruxes, four teams. We destroy them all at once, make him vulnerable, maybe weaken him somehow. Then we all hit him at once before he can react.”

“Those of us who make it that far,” Susan said grimly. “I’m in.”

“Thanks, Ron,” Harry said, taking Ron’s position in front of the group. “So, we have a lot of research to do, and training. We don’t know where or how we’ll be needing to strike, but I want a commitment from each of you right now.”

He looked at them, his friends, his loves, his family. It went against every instinct in his body to ask for their help and expose them to danger, but he knew in his heart that the Chosen One lone hero was a newspaper myth, and sure to get him killed, and not sure to overthrow Voldemort.

“No matter what plan we come up with,” Harry vowed, “each of us will go where we need to be, and do what we need to do. No preference to lovers, or siblings, or anything. Four teams, four targets, no mistakes. Can you do that?”

Ron immediately replied, “You know my answer, mate. I’m in.”

Ginny and Susan both stood, and joined hands. “We’re in,” Susan said, looking to Ginny, who smirked a wry grin and nodded her assent.

Tonks and Hermione, the barest moment apart, chorused, “I’m in, Harry.” They looked at one another somewhat awkwardly. The group turned to Neville and Luna, who still sat, side by side.

“Neville,” Harry began, “We’d all understand, given what’s happened between you two—”

Luna stood, and said clearly, with no trace of her sometimes dreamy, detached demeanor, “I got married so that I could fight, Harry.”

Neville also stood, and chuckled. “Silly me, I’m going to fight because I got married. Well, I would have done, anyway, but no one better try to stop me now.”

It would have been fitting if there was a swell of inspirational music, or an exciting magical aura, or some signal of their commitment to a bold and dangerous path. Instead, Ron’s stomach growled loudly, making Hermione and Harry laugh, which set off the others. While Ron protested that he’d been too nervous to eat before, Ginny scoffed at the idea of Ron ever being too emotional to eat. Pretty soon, they were downstairs around the table. Harry and Hermione worked side by side in the kitchen, while Tonks poured a toasting round of honey-mead and butterbeer for everyone, except for Luna, who stuck to her favorite, gillywater with an onion.

* * *

The young woman, dark-haired, curvaceous, and bright-eyed, elbowed her boyfriend, the much taller, much thinner redhead. He had come over for a late dinner after working late, and he had fallen asleep on her sofa, listening to the wireless. He startled, reaching for his horn-rimmed glasses, and not finding them.

“Audrey, what’s become of my glasses?” His voice was thin, a bit too reedy to be really pleasant, but when he spoke to her there was a certain softness in it that others rarely got to hear.

Audrey held her hands behind her back, almost making a production of it. “I have no idea what you mean, Percy. Are you sure you were wearing them?”

He gave a tired sigh and put his arms around her, reaching for her hands and his glasses.

“Dearest, I’m sorry I nodded off. I really should be going, but you know I need my glasses.”

The plump brunette pouted, her full lips provocative even as she dodged his attempts to recover his glasses. This caused her to rub rather frankly against him, something she enjoyed very much, and with which he found no reason to complain. She shook her head, and her lustrous black hair framed her face with satin waves.

“You could stay.”

He snatched his glasses from around her, paying the toll of a kiss as he did so, but then he straightened the glasses on his face and looked at her seriously.

“You know I can’t do that.”

She turned with a huff, and stood up, putting her hands to her hips. Though a good foot shorter than Percy, Audrey probably had him outweighed and certainly outmatched. Her Welsh accent thickened as she grew angrier.

“And why not, then? Is that what I am to you, then, Percy Weasley? A bit of supper, a bit of a cuddle and a quick nap before you disappear for days?”

“You know that’s not true,” he said, standing. “The sacrifices I am making right now aren’t just for me, or for my position at the Ministry. I have an important mission, I promise you. If I could tell you, I would, but I can’t. It’s critical that my role remains secret for the greater good.”

“Sometimes I don’t care about your mission or your career. These are dangerous times, and I just want you to come over and hold me. Maybe spend the night. Maybe something more. Is it so wrong to want that? Are you telling me I’m being selfish?”

Percy sighed and took her in his arms. Despite his lanky appearance, there was something solid about him, something comforting in his smell and the feeling of his arms around her. She sighed against him.

“Audrey, Dearest,” he said into her hair as he kissed the top of her head, “I promise you, once these troubles are over with, everything will be better, especially for people like us. But until then, the mission comes first. I have to go.”

She pulled back and nodded. “I understand. I’ll miss you.”

“You, too.” He fixed his glasses straight, ran his fingers through his hair, and stepped back, Apparating with a muffled pop in the small flat. Audrey turned off the wireless, gave the dishes a rinse and a promise, and went to bed.

* * *

Harry and Tonks were engaged in something as close to a frivolous errand as they had allowed themselves. While following up a lead on Slytherin’s locket, one of the missing Horcruxes, they had met an old colleague of Tonks from her days as an Auror, a rather chatty witch named Violet Meeks who had been an assistant to Dolores Umbridge until she had managed to get transferred to another department. 

Wanting to meet somewhere crowded, and public, they had chosen a WHSmith bookshop in Kings Cross station, and the meeting had been very profitable. Meeks was able to inform them that she had heard Umbridge boasting to another Undersecretary that while she was an Umbridge on her father’s side, her mother’s people were all Selwyns, Purebloods connected to the lineage of Salazar Slytherin himself. She had an old heirloom locked away in her office, which she treasured as a connection to that noble gentleman. She hoped someday to display it more openly, but that would require some adjustments of attitude in the current Minister.

Meeks had not seen the locket, but it had been described to her by the person who Umbridge had shown it to, and the description matched Harry’s recollection distinctly. After thanking Meeks with a promise to keep her name out of their further discussions, Harry and Tonks were in a jubilant mood. This led more directly to the frivolous portion of their journey, where they had popped over to Platform 9 ¾, which of course was closed today, to reminisce about their first meeting, when Ron and Harry had been prevented from accessing the platform to catch the Express, and Junior Auror Tonks had been detailed to assist them.

It was there, near the column that led to the platform, that they noticed some trouble. Both were disguised, of course. Harry was a shorter, somewhat older version of himself, with sandy brown hair cropped close to his skull and a green shirt with jeans. Tonks was rocking a modern punk look, with a blue streak through her platinum blonde bleached hair, with a series of piercings in her ear, her brow, and her lip. Still, when they heard an authoritative voice issuing commands, they lowered their heads and began to walk briskly away as a general safety measure.

“I’ve told you, you're trespassed, see? Not allowed in the station. So bugger off!”

“Where else can I go? This is the only place I know he’ll come!” The voice was frantic, a whining, beaten voice of a young man hanging onto defeat with both hands, lest he lose even that. “Nine and f’ree quarters, it said in them letters. Dad tried to burn them but I kept one, f’ought it might be worth summit. How was I to know? How was I to _know_?!”

Harry stopped, puzzled. Tonks tried to casually move him along, but Harry was looking back, trying to see who the police were talking to. But it wasn’t a police officer, just a station agent of some kind, a tired man in a suit that buttoned too tightly around his middle and showed a long stretch of shirt cuff when he raised his arms. He was talking to a hunched, slender teen, with filthy hair, ragged clothes, and the look of someone using drugs and sleeping rough.

“Not again, you! No such thing as Platform 9 ¾, is there? Now bugger off before I have the police, you hear me?”

The young man pulled away from the larger gentleman, ducking and twisting from his grip with a quick move Harry recognized from years of his own bullying and abuse. Harry was trying to put together what he had heard with what he was seeing when his face went pale and his eyes wide. Hurrying towards him, blindly shuffling rapidly towards the exit, was Dudley Dursley.

It was no wonder Harry hadn’t recognized his cousin. He was thin, emaciated, with dark bags under his eyes, stained teeth with one or more clearly missing, and a nose which had been broken at some point and healed crooked, like a boxer with more stubbornness than skill. His once slick, golden hair was a dark blonde, filthy, cut unevenly, sticking out from under a soiled soft cap.

He was almost past when Harry asked incredulously, “Dudley? What the hell’s happened to you?”

The flinch, the cowering, with a hand up to guard the face, and an arm tucked down to protect the ribs, told Harry everything he needed to know right now about how Dudley Dursley had been treated since Harry Potter saw him last.

“What? Leave off me, I’m going!” His cousin edged away from Harry, clearly ready to bolt for the door.

“Tonks,” Harry called on quick instinct, “he’s coming with us!”

So busy was Dudley in preparing to sprint from Harry, he did not notice the blonde punk subtly flick a wand from her jacket pocket and murmur something towards him. Just as Dudley began to slump to the ground, Harry and Tonks got him under the arms, and managed to walk him out of the station.

“Who is this?” Tonks asked under her breath as they frog-marched Dudley towards a bus shelter bench down the road. “Cor, he doesn’t half stink.”

As they eased the drowsing Dudley down onto the bench, Harry began to quickly inventory the signs. Swollen knuckles. Poorly healed breaks to more than one finger. Some scarring around his ears, what looked to be cigarette burns on his arm where his sleeve had pulled up from their carrying him. Dudley had clearly been through hell.

There was a time when seeing his cousin suffering like this would have made Harry’s heart leap in his chest, a sure sign that there was justice in the world. Now, years on from his own trauma, and having made some motions towards healing, Harry was violently nauseated, and clamped his jaw down on rising bile to see the signs of abuse on another boy’s body, even this boy.

“Tonks,” Harry said tightly, “I’m sure you remember my cousin, Dudley.”

She looked closely, trying to reconcile this scarred, scared, shattered young man with the smug, sleek, overstuffed bully of a child she had seen in Harry’s memories. Even in his sleep, one arm covered his chest, the other reached down to protect his groin. She turned to Harry, speechless.

“We can’t take him to St. Mungo’s, he’s a Muggle and it’s sure to be watched,” Harry thought aloud. “The Muggle hospitals will want us to answer all sorts of questions we don’t have answers to. I’m open to suggestions.”

“We could leave him,” Tonks mused. “He’s probably as safe here as anywhere. And if he was there looking for you, that can’t be good, can it?”

“And what if all this happened to him because of me?” Harry’s naturally protective character and his habit of assuming the blame for things completely out of his control were at war with his practical self-defensive instinct. “I have to know what happened. For all I know he—”

Harry stopped himself. He was going to say that Dudley might have deserved this, but he knew the thought was a lie the moment it came into his head. Some of these scars were clearly years old, and bully or no, no child could deserve this. Harry made up his mind.

“I hate to ask, believe me, but do you think you’re up to side-along Apparating the both of us?” Harry implored her. He saw her calculating, weighing her answer, but he knew she could do it.

“Only if it’s somewhere I know pretty well. You aren’t thinking of bringing him ‘home’ are you?” She was careful to never say “Carnaby Street” aloud, even between the two of them.

“No, I know somewhere safe, until we can figure out what’s happened.”

In a few minutes, they had maneuvered Dudley into an alcove sufficiently private that they felt safe Apparating. Harry hefted his cousin over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, while Tonks ran head up through the gate to the door. Just as Harry arrived, the door swung open.

“Oh, heavens! Not one of mine, I hope?” Molly Weasley was wiping her hands on her apron, and peering at the bony backside of the figure over Harry’s shoulder.

“No, one of mine, actually,” Harry grunted. “Can I ask you for a huge favor?”

She eyed the boy, Harry, and Tonks for a mere moment.

“You better come in. I’ll get the kettle on.”

* * *

Three wizards left the village of Ottery St. Catchpole at dusk, heading up the lane towards an odd, black house. Across a small stream, they slipped quietly up to the gate. Tacked to the gate was a sign, which read "Editor of the Quibbler." As the horizon colored with the setting sun, and the sky above went from blue, to violet, to indigo, the three raised their hoods. Around their left arms, each affixed a black band.

They waited, watching until a light on the ground floor of the cylindrical house went out, to be replaced by one on a higher floor. They counted to twenty or so, to be sure, then hopped the short fence, heading around towards the back garden. One felt his robe catch on a picket, and muttered a soft curse as he tugged it free.

In the back garden, they were slowed by the deep shadows cast by the tall, rook-like house. They crept more cautiously to a small flower-bordered area, near the spreading branches of a tall crack willow tree. One drew his wand, but another, the shortest and most self-important of the three, restrained him.

“You know what the lady said, right? No magic. He might have wards.”

The wand-bearer scoffed. “Wards, here? Don’t be daft, mate. Besides, we already have the muffling spell, chances are that’d set them off as well.”

The third wizard looked from one to another, silent. He reached into an extensible sack and pulled out two large spades and a large screw device with a T-shaped handle.

“Look, you want to use magic, you go explain it to that woman, see? Because I want no part of that crazy, she’s been bunged up in Azkaban so long, she might peel your eyeballs like grapes just for looking. And she’d laugh doing it, too.”

“Fine,” the first wizard said, putting his wand away and taking a spade in hand, “but I get to open the box.”

“Fine,” the second said, and they began cutting into the turf and turning over shovelfuls of dark, moist earth. It was rich soil, and in the darkness, it looked like nothing so much as chocolate cake as they dug into it.

The third wizard took the T-handled device a short way away from the house and began screwing it down into the lawn. By the time his companions were done with their digging, he had bored a deep hole and set a long pole, also from his extensible sack, into the hole, standing some eight feet over the garden ground. He took another, short pole and laid in on the ground, only to hear disappointed muttering from the wizard who had wanted to use his wand.

“No box. They just put her in the ground. What sort of treatment is that, I ask you? She’s coming apart, she is.” He sounded offended.

“Well, we’ll bind her to the cross best we can,” the shortest wizard said, eyeing the body they had disinterred. “The ropes should hold her together well enough.”

It was quick work to bind the remains to the second pole, then hoist it into place, affixing it to the long pole in the shape of a cross.

“Give me the sign,” the short wizard said impatiently, surveying the crucified body. He held his hand out impatiently to his mates.

“I thought you had it,” the first wizard replied. The third shrugged mutely, spreading his hands and shaking his head.

“Bloody hell, it doesn’t work without the sign, does it?”

“Her nibs is going to be pissed, that’s for sure.”

The second wizard grabbed his silent partner, and spun him roughly around by the shoulders, then plunged an arm into the extensible sack. After feeling around for a moment, his eyes lit up and he shared an evil grin as he pulled a sign out from the magic bag. He tried to put it in place, but he was too short.

The third wizard took the sign from his hand and hung it around the corpse’s neck.

_“Pandora Lovegood: Unseemly in Life, Uneasy in Death”_

They slipped their tools back into their sack, and quietly crept back out to the lane. They could just see the crucifixion from the road, but they knew that down the hill, in the village itself, it would be visible for miles, once they took care of one last detail.

“Can I?” The first wizards asked the second, wand once again in hand. “I didn’t get to open a box. I was looking forward to that.”

The smaller wizard waved his hand generously. He had an eye on advancement in the Black Band, and he’d need support down the line. No need to be stingy now, when it cost him nothing.

The first wizard waved his wand and pronounced with exaggerated care, _“Incendio!”_

The body of Pandora Lovegood, such as it was, burst into roaring green flames, all except the sign around her neck, which stayed clear and unobscured. A nice bit of magic from her nibs, that was, the shorter wizard acknowledged to himself. The body and the poles burned brightly but were not consumed, so they would blaze long into the night as a warning until someone could figure out a counterspell. Even then, removing the body from the enchanted ropes would prove challenging, and presumably, heartbreaking. Lights flared on in the Lovegood house, and they heard the back door fly open, followed by wailing. The sound, an inhuman noise of pain and grief, rising and carrying out over the village, was even better than the fire.

With a satisfied grin, the shorter wizard took his mute companion’s arm, and with a nod, all three Apparated away. They left the town of Ottery St. Catchpole with the light of a fiery new beacon and the cries of a widower’s anguish lingering behind them.

* * *

Augusta Longbottom stood in the Great Hall of her son’s home. She held her wand in one hand, and a small jade figurine of a wolfhound in the other. The wand was cherry, with a core of unicorn hair. It was light, delicate, feminine, everything the aged Augusta no longer was, at least not obviously. The figurine was worn, polished smooth by many years of long handling. It had been a gift from her late husband, in remembrance of their first meeting at the home of a mutual friend who was partial to the large dogs.

Though Augusta’s hearing was not what it had been, her back was straight, her eyes clear, and the spotted and almost gnarled hand which held her wand did not tremble or waver whatsoever. She had known they were coming when the floo stopped working.

She had been using the fire grate in her upstairs sitting room to inquire with Minerva McGonagall, the acting Headmistress of Hogwarts, as to the possibility of her grandson returning to the school to finish his education “after the current unpleasantness” when the connection had been broken and the fire died out. Though she had come down to check the fireplace in the Great Hall to be sure, she was certain that the break-in communication signaled that the people who had broken her beloved son, and his charming and loving wife, and had driven her grandson to ground along with his new bride, these people were here, or would be shortly.

She had placed a few final instructions for her grandson in the family safe, sealed with a blood ward that only he would now be able to open. Nothing gushing or emotional, just a few practical matters.

_“Neville,_

_Your Great Uncle knows the plans for the house and can serve as your factotum if needed. Now that you are of majority, our seat in the Wizengamot shall pass to you upon my demise. Do not let Algie act as your proxy. He has a good head for business and money but political power makes him petty and venal, not a fair reflection on the family._

_I am very sorry that I did not get the opportunity to congratulate your Luna in person. Please convey my regrets._

_I am very proud of you. Goodbye._

_Augusta Longbottom”_

With surprising grace and subtlety, she began to weave a charm with her wand when she heard the commotion in the front hall. The intruders had found her potted Lashworts waiting among the arranged flowers, and were dealing with their caustic tentacles with a great deal of noise and some uncouth cursing. Augusta finished her charm and waited.

The door from the hall flew open, and she was greeted with three men, all disheveled from her little botanical friends, but largely intact.

“Mulciber,” Augusta intoned distastefully. “Nott, and Rookwood, is it? I knew your father. Twice the man you will ever be, bless him. Is that all?”

Mulciber snorted, but Rookwood looked around warily. Nott, nearly as old as Augusta, also eyed her cautiously.

“Theodore,” she said, shaking her head sadly at the elderly Nott, “aren’t you past this nonsense? Running about playing revolutionary, at your age?”

“Younger than you,” he said amiably as Rookwood and Mulciber began to spread to each side, making themselves more difficult targets. “And I’ll outlive you as well, for what it’s worth.”

Augusta shook her head. “I’d wager you’re wrong, as usual. Say, five galleons?”

He laughed, a nasty phlegmy sound. “Why not a thousand, considering where you’re standing?”

“Done,” Augusta said promptly, dark eyes flashing.

“Enough,” barked Mulciber, taking a step forward and raising his wand. When his rising hand came within a certain, invisible perimeter, it was engulfed in violet fire, creeping tendrils racing up his sleeve and flashing over his whole body. He dropped his wand in shock and surprise, sealing his fate. 

Before Nott or Rookwood could act, the flames had engulfed Mulciber in a flash and were burning away his hair, and his lips, and eyelids. With a shriek, he fell to his knees, then fell forward. When his head hit that same invisible perimeter, it hissed and sizzled with redoubled fire, and as his brains heated in his skull it gave way, firing the contents of his head like a cannon, very nearly hitting August as she stepped aside with surprising agility.

Nott took all of this in, then coughed a little from the smoke rising from the formerly animate ruin to his right.

“Perhaps five galleons seems fair,” he said at last.

Rookwood shot a stunner, with a quick flick of his wand and scarcely a sound. He had been an Unspeakable, highly trained and versed in long-forgotten spells and curses, but he tested Augusta with a simple, classic attack.

The red jet of his stunner hit her barrier and was refracted, angling aside to strike her side table which exploded into slivers. Before she could riposte, Nott had cast a cursebreaker at her barrier, and as her charmed barrier failed it pushed her back on her heels. At point-blank range, the old woman dueled the two Death Eaters, the vile old man Nott and the younger, more vigorous Rookwood. 

Every time Nott went for the killing curse, he would have to dodge or shield, or once hang on to his wand with both hands as it was nearly jinxed away. Rookwood stuck with a more direct approach, slowly pushing Augusta back with stunners and bodybinds.

From outside the stately Longbottom home, flashes of light illuminated the windows and spilled out onto the manicured lawns, accompanied by muted sounds of distant thunder. The house itself trembled more than once, but it was an ancient and deeply magical estate and had withstood worse, though not within a generation.

Some interminable period later, after the flashes and rumblings had at last ceased, Rookwood stumbled from the house, his face burned on one side, missing an ear and a good-sized portion of hair. He paused, leaning on the doorjamb, wheezing. He looked back over his shoulder, shaking his head.

“Someone owes that woman’s grandson a thousand galleons,” he gasped, before sending the Dark Mark into the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Longbottoms, man. Three generations of BAMFs.
> 
> The hedgewizard auxiliaries to Voldemort's followers are now using black armbands as identifiers, and rather unimaginatively refer to themselves as the Black Band. While individually they tend towards mediocrity, their numbers and viciousness tend to make them a credible threat.
> 
> Never written Dudley before (still haven't, much) but it seemed a good time.
> 
> Best, Killjoy


	4. Midsummer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Midsummer
> 
> Notable Plot Points  
> 1\. Dudley’s Tale  
> 2\. Identifying the Horcruxes  
> 3\. The Lords of Death  
> 4\. The Spy  
> 5\. Oh, Bugger
> 
> Please see notes for content warnings or review tags.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot going on in this chapter, and much of it was difficult to write for one reason or another.
> 
> There are some serious content warning for elements that some may find disturbing, so please read cautiously:
> 
> International conspiracy  
> Reference to drug use  
> Alcoholism  
> Implied Eating Disorder  
> Sexual and Physical Abuse of a Minor  
> Implied Incest  
> Semi-public nudity  
> Consensual kink
> 
> Thanks to n01 for advice on Dudley's Tale.

**4\. Midsummer**

Hermione Granger woke to find that she was face-down in a book, her shoulders and back on fire, and her legs numb from her position bent over her desk. Her Murphy bed was folded up, and the small study she currently called home was festooned with neat piles of notes, diagrams, and multiple open books. She tilted her head to one side to ease the strain in her neck and found that it would only move a few degrees. She was unable to relax, unable to bend. Oddly poetic, she thought.

She realized two things almost at once. The first, and less important, was that her shoulders felt much better than her neck or back. The second, which explained the first, was that someone was slowly but firmly rubbing her shoulders.

“I just want to warn you,” she muttered, “I’m giving you the rest of my life to stop doing that.”

“That sounds like an interesting offer.”

She smiled. “Hello, Ronald. Why didn’t you wake me?”

He chuckled quietly. “I thought that was what I was doing.”

She sat up, carefully and with some creaking, and leaned her head back, making contact with him, and looked up to see him looking down with a gentle smile on his face.

“Hello, nice man,” she sighed.

“Hello, beautiful lady,” he replied. He backed away and leaned down, placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. “You never made it to your bed, I see.”

She frowned. “What time is it?”

“It’s half six in the morning,” Ron continued to rub her shoulders and he felt her tense at his words.

“Goodness, that won’t do. I have to be up, I have so many things that I—”

Ron interrupted her with a persistent shushing sound. “No, Hermione, change of plans. We’re going to test our disguise spellwork. Harry wants us to go by the Burrow, so it’s walking clear of here under disguise, then a little Apparating.”

“What does he need from your family?” She stood, and only then realized that she was still wearing only the nightshirt she had put on to get ready for bed the night before, only to be seduced away by “one more book.” She was modestly covered above, but it showed a lot of leg. In the past, this might have bothered her a bit.

Lately, however, she had grown much less self-conscious, at least around Ronald. For a start, they were dating now, though they had not actually gone anywhere on a date. She had, however, kissed him goodnight a few times, and they had stolen one or two passionate snogs around the flat, discreetly. Of course, with her returning memory, which she had still shared with no one but Harry, she now was both extensively experienced and more confident when it came to her body, though that was a lifetime ago and with a very different boy. Finally, no one sharing a flat with Luna Lovegood, or rather Luna Longbottom, could remain overly fussy about a little incidental, partial nudity for very long.

“Harry wants us to check in with Mum about his cousin. She owled Harry and said it was too much for a message that could go astray, but I think he’s really nervous about what he might hear. Tonks and I spoke last night, and I suggested you and I could go. Harry jumped at the idea this morning. He’s up exercising, of course, though what there is left to tone or whatever I couldn’t tell you”

“Well, I guess I better get a shower, then, and try to do something with this hair,” she said, stretching. The hem of her shirt rode higher, which Ronald gallantly pretended not to notice while also appreciatively checking her out. He really was a nice boy.

“Shower quickly,” he advised, “and Mum should still have breakfast. Also, your hair is gorgeous, don’t worry.”

“Right, see you downstairs in about twenty minutes?” She grabbed a change of clothes from her trunk, making sure to bend from the waist to pick them up, well aware of Ronald’s view. That was in partial reward for the sweet comment about her hair.

“Erm, what was that?” His face was flushed and he was mumbling. 

A very nice boy—she felt herself to be very lucky.

* * *

Luna Longbottom woke up and looked over to the figure next to her. Neville, her husband—husband! a happy word—was sleeping quietly, peacefully. His face, grown so much leaner and more mature the last few years, was softened in sleep, his expression that of an angel in repose. She thought that he was the most beautiful man that she had ever seen.

It had not been a good night. When word of the attack on his home had reached him, he had to be physically restrained from rushing there. She had been the one to reach him, to point out that it was already too late to help his grandmother, but not too late to endanger him, his friends, and their goals. Ultimately, Neville’s commitment to his friends was stronger than his desire for revenge, at least for now. 

She had held him and expected him to cry. He was not the sort to hold back tears from some misguided sense of masculine strength. But instead, he had become very quiet and tender, and had he gently accepted her love. Now, he seemed at peace.

He stirred, and he opened one eye, that pale blue perfect eye, and blinked a few times.

“Hello, Luna,” she heard him mumble.

“Hello, Neville,” she replied with a small smile. “You seemed to sleep well.”

“I did,” he said more clearly, rolling over and sitting up next to her. He ran a hand over her bare shoulder, thrilling to the warmth of her next to him. “How about you?”

“Not so much,” she shrugged, sitting up and snuggling in under his arm. “I enjoyed watching you sleep, though.”

“Were you still thinking about your mum?” Neville asked softly. When word of the desecration of Pandora Lovegood’s grave had reached them, Luna had fallen into a silent funk and refused to discuss it, even with Neville. 

“Not mum,” she admitted. “Mum’s dead. She’s been dead a long time, and I’m used to it, rather. I have my memories of her, and they cannot touch those. No, it’s Dad who has been on my mind. What he must have felt, what he had to see... They’re really quite cruel, these people.”

“Well, Gran saw to two of them at least, and we’re not finished yet, are we?”

They sat in companionable silence before he finally spoke again. “She would have been happy, I think, that we were together. I think you’re good for me.”

“I think I am  _ essential _ for you,” she corrected him gently. “And you for me. I was rather pleased, actually. When you explained to me that you wanted to break up, I understood why you were doing it. So, I was quite surprised to discover that my heart had broken. But now we’re together, always, so it will all work out right in the end.”

“In my heart, I never left you, you know,” he said. “I just felt like I had to do it. I’m glad that it wasn’t for long.”

He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. She tilted her head up, and she captured his lips with hers. Suddenly, he turned, and wrapped her in his arms, and pulled her on top of him.

“Good morning, Mr. Longbottom,” she said happily.

“Good morning, Mrs. Longbottom,” he replied, blessing her with kisses across her face. She began to move against him, and he against her, and together they greeted the day in the best way.

* * *

Ron and Hermione stood close to one another outside his parents’ home, looking access the large back garden to where a thin figure sat, huddled as if for warmth even in the bright sunshine, on a bench overlooking some apple trees. Molly Weasley stood near them, speaking softly of the young man recently put in her care.

“It took a few days for him to talk,” she said. “He wouldn’t let me wash him at all, but your father was able, after a gentle talking-to.”

“Dad?” Ron asked. “I’m surprised he wouldn't open up to you, Mum. Everyone talks to you.”

“Well, he’s had a rough time, since Harry came away.” There was a tone of unaccustomed anger in her voice. “It seems once Harry was gone, the father took to abusing his own boy. I gather he’d grown a taste for it, having someone to bully and blame. With Harry safely out of the way, his cousin was next in line.”

“I can’t believe that mother of his would stand for it,” Hermione said incredulously. “From what Harry said, I mean what I can recall, she doted on Dudley, beyond reason.”

“That’s where it took a turn,” Molly said. “Something happened between the boy and his father, we haven’t been able to find out what. Then it was just the aunt and the boy.”

“You don’t mean his father has died, do you?” Ron gasped, looking back at the sallow youth resting on the bench. “I mean, he just took off, or something, right?”

“I wish I knew,” Molly said. “Your father had his friend Radcliffe from St. Mungo’s come around yesterday while Dudley was asleep to do a bit of Legilimency just to be sure. The lad’s not right, inside. He’s broken, Radcliffe says, but he’s got powerful defenses around those memories. It scared Radcliffe, I’ll tell you. Left his tea on the table and flooed right out.”

“Defenses? Like Occlumency? But he’s a Muggle!” Hermione was fascinated despite herself.

“So he seems, but I’ve never seen a mind-healer react like that before. Anyway, Dudley’s spoken a bit after that. He left his house last year, and has been looking for Harry ever since.” Molly shook her head. “Whatever demons are pursuing that boy, they seem to be in his mind and not at his heels, at any rate.”

“What are we going to do with him?” Hermione asked the two Weasleys. “It’s not wise for Harry to come here, and I don’t think it’s safe to bring Dudley to him.”

“I’ve talked to Arthur. With the children gone—even Fred and George are mostly staying at their shop these days—I think it would be good for the boy to stay here. We can keep an eye on him, and try to make some progress helping him heal. I won’t put him out on the street, not with no one to turn to.”

“You are being careful, aren’t you?” Ron’s voice betrayed his worry. “After what happened to Luna’s dad, just down the road, and then to Neville’s gran…”

Molly grimaced.

“Ronald Weasley, I will not be put out of my home by traitors and ruffians. You forget your father and I fought in the last war. The Order of the Phoenix is not a knitting circle. Besides, Augusta Longbottom took at least two of You Know Who’s Death Eater scum with her, and she went with her wand in her hand. We should all be so lucky.”

Ron hugged her fiercely, and Molly’s eyebrows raised when Hermione joined in, wrapping her tightly in a heartfelt embrace. She gathered the two children, the two young folks, she amended, to her bosom and held tight.

“So, Neville and Luna, eh? Should we be on the lookout for any other news of that sort?” Molly eyed the two slyly. “Just as a precaution, of course?”

Ron sprang back, blushing, but Hermione gave Molly a final squeeze before letting go, and she looked demurely to Ron to let him answer.

“Well,” Ron said quickly, “Everyone else is of age now, except Harry and Ginny. If they make any plans I’ll be sure to send an owl.”

“Our Ginny, married to Harry Potter? Now, that would be a surprise, wouldn’t it?” Molly chuckled.

In the garden, Dudley Dursley sat, soaking in the sunshine without being warmed by its touch. A fly landed on his bare wrist and proceeded to walk across his hand.

“Dudley, Diddums, bring Mummy a drink, would you?” His mother’s voice was sickly sweet, a gross parody of the wheedling tone she had used on him as a child. He tried not to flinch. It was worse when he flinched.

“Yes, Mum,” he said, taking her glass to the kitchen. The table was laden with food, some of it days old. While she was not much of a cook, and rarely made any effort at anything, she still insisted on trying to make him eat. Rancid bacon, a more or less freshly cooked egg, and stale toast shared a table with the remains of untouched meals of greater age. The smell was appalling, but Dudley ignored it. Ignoring food was one of the few ways he could still rebel. It made his head light, and his body was wasting, eating itself from within, but he didn’t touch anything she had put before him, only water and sometimes a few ancient crackers he had discovered hidden in Harry’s old cupboard under the stairs.

He poured the last of the gin after giving the edge of the glass a quick swipe with a dirty cloth. The glass was less than two-thirds full, and he shuddered. She would not be happy.

“Here you are, Mother.” He handed the glass to her, reaching out his arm so as to stand as far from her as possible.

Petunia Dursley, never a conventionally attractive woman, had been ill-served by time. Her skin was sallow. Her lips were painted a girlish pink in an attempt to make her look more youthful, but instead of the pop appeal of youth, they now resembled a pastel sweet that had been licked a few times, then spat out on the floor of a taxi. Her eyes were framed in smudged kohl liner and swam in a sea of sparkling blue shadow. The whites of her eyes had a pronounced yellow tinge, which matched her teeth when she smiled at her son. The smile turned cold when she saw the glass.

“Why didn’t you fill Mummy’s glass, Diddums?” The same sweet tone, but with a cracked glass edge underneath.

“That’s the lot,” muttered Dudley.

“ _ Liar! _ ” Her shriek was instant and cut at her son like a whip. He recoiled. She went on, with cold anger. “You don’t want Mummy to have her drink, just a drink to relax. You want Mummy to suffer, is that it? To hurt Mummy?”

It made no difference if he told her the truth or a careful lie, in the end. It was better for him to tell the truth, if only because it was easier to keep straight in his darkly twisting mind.

“No, bottle’s empty, Mother—” Dudley began, but she hissed at him.

“I’ve told you to call me  _ Mummy _ . You can’t be my good baby boy if you don’t call me  _ Mummy _ .”

“Yes, Mummy,” he said. He wanted to back away, but he knew what was coming next. It was worse when he tried to hide or pulled away. She could always make it worse somehow, he’d discovered.

“Mummy needs a cigarette now, Diddums.” She began to stir in her chair. Her spotted and stained blue gown, already hanging from one shoulder, gaped open further, revealing a sad breast with a wine-colored nipple surrounded by a pattern of veins like forked lightning. Her skin sagged away from her bony chest, her collarbones stark white against the mottled red and jaundiced yellow of the rest of her body.

“I can go get you more, Mummy,” he said quickly, watching as she unfolded from the chair like a marionette springing to life at the hands of a talentless puppeteer. “I look old enough, I can buy you a bottle—”

Her hand lashed out, a backhand across his face with the savage quickness of a younger, healthier woman. As it had before, the small brownish diamond of her engagement ring tore across his face, opening a cut on his cheek.

“You lie,” she accused flatly, the previous rage now lost in a swamp of self-loathing and self-pity. She swayed on her feet and gulped her gin.

“Cigarette!” Her voice cracked, and he scrambled to remove one of her long, dark cigarettes from its package. He put it to his own lips, lit it, and drew a deep draught of calming smoke before offering it to her. The smoke did not make him cough or even catch his breath. This was far from the first time, after his father had gone. 

She took the cigarette from him, standing before him with her gown gaping open, revealing her florid flesh in its mix of yellow, red, and sad grey tones. Her knees were red and raw looking, and steel grey hair flourished below her belly. She took a deep drag, and he watched the tip glow hotter. Smoke slowly trickled from his own nostrils as he released his initial drag.

“Do it,” she said, almost calmly. “Show Mummy.”

He knelt, careful not to close his eyes or to look away. He pulled his shirt off over his head, revealing his scarred torso, the flesh hanging on him. His face was a carefully composed simulation of a smile. She reached down and parted her gown, and stepped forward, letting it fall.

He put his arms around her, feeling her slack backside, her sharply-angled hip bones, and then the coarse brush of her mound as her naked form was wrapped in his arms. He turned his face to the side, and the blood from his cut cheek smeared across her belly below her navel. He pressed himself to her in a macabre mockery of a child’s embrace.

“Say it.”

“Dudley loves his Mummy,” he said. He tried so hard to add some emotion to his voice, but it was flat and mechanical. He steeled himself.

The cigarette came down, finding a fresh spot on his left shoulder, close enough to his turned face that he could hear and smell his own skin burning.

“Again.  _ Mean _ it.”

“Dudley  _ loves _ his Mummy,” he said, almost willing it to be true, the smell of smoke not coming from tobacco full in his nose. His body trembled but he did not flinch. It was worse when he flinched.

“Oh, Diddums,” she sighed, taking another deep drag on the cigarette, preparing it to be used again. “Oh, the things _you_ _make me do_.”

Dudley looked at the fly, walking across his hand, exploring his flesh. He stared at it, and he shuddered slightly, as if someone had trod upon his grave. The fly shuddered as well, and with a tiny hiss, it disappeared with a barely noticeable puff of smoke. The smoke and ash wafted away on the light summer breeze.

“ _ Oh _ ,” Dudley whispered, “ _ the things you make me do _ .”

* * *

Neville took a long look at the deck of the outside patio, considering the sun, drainage, shade, and other factors, then he raised his wand towards the window-boxes of plants he had growing along one side of the deck.

“ _ Kalliergó! _ ”

Vines erupted from his plant boxes, snaking together to form a woven mat. Then tendrils rose, twined together, and arched overhead, creating a small bower, semi-enclosed, just large enough for his wife to sit. As she dropped her robe and settled into the shaded, verdant spot, dozens of tiny white and gold blossoms burst into vegetative joy around her, perfuming the air with a faintly honeyed sweetness. She drew a breath and smiled, her eyes closed.

“Thank you, Dearest,” she sighed.

Neville considered his work and lowered his wand.

“Anything for you, Love,” he replied. He took a large book and found a seat in the shade on a lounge chair. “Are you sure you don't want a book?”

“No thank you,” she replied, settling in and smiling faintly. “I’m researching inside, today.”

Neville knew better than to question Luna’s methods, and the young couple began their day’s work. A few hours later, Susan and Ginny joined them, bringing iced limeade in tall glasses, and they sunned themselves. Ginny wore her scandalous bikini, and after a few envious glances at Luna, she untied the top and let it drop by her side. Susan wore a one-piece bathing costume that was cut high on her hips but covered her body. She sipped her drink and regarded Ginny from underneath a floppy straw hat.

“Any luck on the research, Neville?” Susan asked, still eyeing her girlfriend who seemed devoted to slowly freckling in the sunshine.

“Hufflepuffs are by the kitchens, yes?”

“Yes, and we’ve heard all the jokes, thank you,” Susan grimaced.

“Helga Hufflepuff was smashing with food and drink and hospitality magic, it says in the books. Something about her cauldron, and house-elves.”

“They told us this story. Food and drink cannot be created magically, of course, but Helga was able to enchant her cauldron to replicate the meals placed into it.” Susan paused, searching the memory of her first-day introduction to Hufflepuff. “That’s how the house-elves learned to provide the feasts. They cook one of everything, and then it’s all charmed up to the tables above. They learned that from her, the first witch to teach magic to a house-elf.”

“Is her cauldron still at Hogwarts?” Neville asked, reaching for a quill and ink from his side table. Hermione and Ron, now stripped of their disguises, came out onto the patio, followed by Tonks and Harry. Harry seemed lost in thought.

“No, it was stolen from the prefects' lounge, oh, years ago now,” Susan said, her eyes growing wide. “You think You Know Who stole it?”

Ginny, who had rolled over onto her back but was still topless, piped up from behind a comically large pair of sunglasses. “You figure it’s a Horcrux now, don't you?” Ron, noticing his sister’s state of undress, turned away. Like the others, he had grown used to Luna and had a certain casual attitude towards clothing among the young and attractive wizards and witches sharing the flat, but his little sister was still enough to make him blush.

“It fits. We’ll try to track it down,” Neville said, making notes.

“Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem,” said Luna, who they all thought had been napping. She was curled up in her flowery bower, with a large butterfly resting on one naked hip, flexing its wings periodically. Eyes still closed, she went on. “She had a diadem, a sort of silver headpiece, that used to be in the Ravenclaw private library. There’s still a case and a display card, but it’s been gone for ages as well.”

“This is amazing,” Tonks said with excitement. “You know what this means?”

“I know,” Hermione said with excitement. “There’s been another library at Hogwarts this whole time!”

Everyone looked at her. Even Luna opened her eyes and raised one eyebrow.

“Sorry,” stammered Hermione. “I know, focus.”

Ron put a commiserating arm around her shoulder.

“Diary and Ring. Locket, Cauldron, Diadem, Snake,” said Harry, rousing himself from wherever his mind had been. “We have our remaining targets, possibly. Now we need locations and confirmations, and we can move ahead with the next stage of our plans.”

* * *

Voldemort sat, alone, in the hall of Malfoy Manor. The fire in front of him in the grate burned with tri-fold flames, red, green, and gold. In each, the head of a great leader appeared.

From the red flames, the figure of an ancient Chinese wizard spoke, his voice high and thin like a wind in reeds. “Lord Voldemort, you tell us again of your certain victory, but your Ministry still stands. My sources tell me two of your lieutenants were killed by an old woman in her living room. Should we believe your words? Or your results?”

Before he could reply, a young-looking, beautiful witch, a dark, lush Romani girl, added her own comments, speaking from the golden flames. “Yanlou is right, Snake Lord. Thrice five years we have been waiting and still, we wait. For Britain, for you.”

In the green fire, an ebony woman with no eyes, only scars across her face, spoke chastising the others. “You forget yourself, Sabina. Lord Voldemort alone among us has walked the path of Death and returned. You may charm yourself young and fey, but I don’t need eyes to know you are closer to the grave than to the cradle, no matter your looks.”

Voldemort leaned forward. When he spoke, there was something alien to his nature, something like respect.

“Thank you, Mother Oba, but Yanlou is right. I have faced delays that vex me and cast all our plans into jeopardy. As to the British Ministry of Magic, it stands because it suits me for it to stand. Recall the fate of the Grey Queen across the sea in the Americas. She challenged the Muggle order and was put down. A century and a half have passed, and no successor has taken her seat among us. When in my purpose the ministry must fall, fall it will, and soon. Before the summer is over, I will hold wizarding Britain in my hands.”

Sabina, the Romani witch, nodded, sensing which way the winds were blowing. Yanlou raised his long feathered brows but said no more.

“The British Ministry, fearing our Black Band reactionaries, has been keeping foreign wizards out, unofficially. I am told that Europe is no friendlier to international meddling.” Voldemort regarded Sabina. “Can you sustain this?”

She scoffed. “The Spanish hate the French, the French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Greeks and Italians, and everyone hates the English. Partisan factions like your Blck Band sping up in every nation. You need not fear meddling from my people so long as our cauldron keeps bubbling.”

“My people are too busy chasing the dragon,” Yanlou boasted. “Breeding a magical strain into the opium poppy was a fine suggestion, Lord Voldemort. The drug has brought the magical East low. Once we have pulled the two rotting teeth, Tibet and Nepal, I shall have dominion over my wizards once more.”

“Just make sure your people are not so weak as to be defenseless,” Mother Oba warned. “Be not too proud of poisoning your own people, Yanlou.”

“So, shall we close the Circle? I am  _ hunting _ tonight,” said Sabina, her salacious emphasis disgusting Lord Voldemort, who preferred his pleasures less primal now that he was tethered so slenderly to the living world.

“Circle of Morrigan, be closed,” Lord Voldemort declared.

“Circle of Adro, be closed,” intoned Mother Oba.

“Circle of Crnobog, be closed,” chanted Queen Sabina.

“Circle of Meng Po, be closed,” sighed Yanlou Gong.

The fires went out, and Lord Voldemort sat in the darkness, scheming and dreaming of his certain triumphs in days to come.

* * *

Voldemort’s spy within the Ministry of Magic had enjoyed a very productive day. The Minister had scheduled a meeting with Kingsley Shacklebolt to review all security plans currently in place until the start of school in September. While the two ministers spoke, the spy had sat among the staff, taking notes not just without suspicion, but by direct order. While his quill sketched outlines of every key security measure for wizard or Muggle in Britain, a charmed duplicate was flying across an ever-growing roll of parchment in Malfoy Manor.

Rufus Scrimgeour motioned to the spy during a break in the marathon meeting.

“Listen, I know this sort of thing is, erm, rather unusual, but I need for you to do me, which is to say the Ministry, something of a favor…”

“Of course, sir. Anything,” the spy replied with unfaked enthusiasm.

“I’m going to ask you to keep a special eye on Shacklebolt. Just anything unusual, anything that might worry us.” Scrimgeour looked across the table, where Kingsley was pouring a cup of tea. “It’s just, there are certain rumors, people saying Shacklebolt was Dumbledore’s man, that kind of thing. I need extra vigilance when it comes to anyone who might find their loyalties _divided_ , do you understand?”

“Of course, Minister. Just being cautious, really.”

Scrimgeour smiled, a tight flashing of teeth under his long nose, a quick shake of his leonine mane of hair, going quite grey now.

“And let’s not say anything to anyone, shall we? Mum’s the word”

“Of course, Minister,” the spy lied smoothly. “Mum’s the word.”

By the end of the day, Lord Voldemort had the DMLE Head’s schedule for the week, his home address with information about wards and guards, and the brand new emergency response plans for all of London. Like chess pieces on a board, Voldemort’s followers began to move into their places.

* * *

Harry stood staring down at the table, rereading the brief Ron had prepared for him. After the murder of Augusta Longbottom, they had increased security further. Now Ron was the only one who saw all of their plans. Knowing Harry was a special target, Tonks and Ron had convinced Harry that he was at too great a risk to carry information he might be tempted or forced to give up that could endanger the others. Harry was reminded of Dumbledore, pulling his strands of spider silk and feeling for the vibrations further out on his web.

Still, Harry trusted Ron. He trusted his strategy, but as importantly, he trusted his nature. Ron was not so emotional as Tonks, not so honor-bound as Neville. He did not have Susan’s cold vengeance nor Harry’s overeagerness to assume risk to spare others. That did not mean that Harry had to like it.

“I wish I could be with you,” he said over his shoulder. Tonks, having read her own brief, was eating a turkey sandwich in bed and fidgeting. All he knew was that she would be at Bill and Fleur’s wedding, undisguised, providing the expected security while others played their own parts.

“I’ll be right there, love." She favored him with an exaggerated wink. "Watching you all the while.”

“I’ll be disguised, you know,” he teased.

“As if you could hide from me!”

“Challenge accepted. But if you don’t spot me by the end of the day, you owe me a dance.” He grinned at her, closing his file.

“You hate dancing,” she accused, suspicious.

“Neville's taught me. He’s quite good, the ladies tell me. I wonder what he’ll be doing.”

“I don’t know, exactly,” Tonks said more or less truthfully, “and if I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

He advanced on her, going to his hands and knees across the bed. She rolled over to put her sandwich remains on the bedside table, and he pounced, landing across her back and nipping with his teeth at the nape of her neck.

“Get off, you great goof,” she grunted as he pressed her down in the mattress, growling in her ear. “No fair! You know that I.. oh… that I can’t… mmm.”

Reaching to her sides, he gathered her hands and raised them over her head, her wrists held together in one of his hands. The other hand reached down and found her hip.

“Oh! Hello,” she murmured into the mattress appreciatively. His hand reached under her hip, and hoisted her waist higher, moving his knees between her legs. Her nightshirt had ridden up, revealing her bare bum and eager sex to him.

“You know, lover, if that’s going to work you’re going to have to take off your—“

She was interrupted by his hard cock entering her swiftly and smoothly until his abdomen pressed against her. The breath left her in a surprised whoosh.

“Oh, you cheeky bastard,” she gasped, just before they both lost the power of speech for a time. He moved within her with enthusiastic energy, almost animalistic, but with a careful restraint that gave her just the right amount of pain with her pleasure, allowed just the right amount of submission in her acceptance of him. It wasn’t often that Harry was like this, but they both enjoyed it when it happened.

She climaxed twice and was lingering near a third time when she felt him lean over her, his sweat dripping onto her shoulder as he whispered in her ear.

“ _Would you like to, I could, if you want…”_ Harry panted, wanting her consent but not wanting to break the mood between them that they were both enjoying so much. She wasn’t sure if he was asking what she thought he might be until his hand reached underneath her and gathered her abundant juices on his fingers.

She pushed back hard against him, their bodies clapping together, and she felt his slick fingers move around to her back, move between them, gently open her.

He paused, and she realized he was waiting for her, making sure that she was as aroused and eager as he, before continuing. She looked back over her shoulder at his red and sweating face, his flashing emerald eyes under heavy lids, his teeth biting into his lower lip.

“Do it,” she panted, nostrils flaring and face flushed from collarbone to scalp. She felt him slip out of her, and after careful repositioning, begin to slide inside her slowly.

“Oh, bugger,” she sighed lustily, burying her facing in the bed and raising her bum higher.

“Well, yeah,” the smart-ass behind her said.

_ He’ll pay for that _ , she thought.  _ Later. Hopefully much, much later. _

* * *

Ronald appeared at Hermione’s door. He had a pillow under one arm and his hair was a riot from tossing and turning in his bed. He had a sheepish, apologetic look.

“Again?” Hermione asked, pulling aside the covers on her small bed.

“Again,” Ronald agreed with a contagious yawn. “Do you mind?”

“Mind? I’ve been rather hoping,” she replied, scooting over and making just enough room for them to lie together closely.

“Yeah, erm, me too, actually,” he said. He took her in his arms, and soon they were both asleep. Next door, in Ronald’s room the walls continued to flash and strobe wildly until the early hours before dawn.


	5. A Bolt from the Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Bolt from the Blue:
> 
> Nerves- Fleur & Ginny, Bill & Ron  
> Wedding Date- Walter & Clara  
> The ceremony- Lovely and amazing  
> The reception- Dance with me  
> Alarum within- the Ministry has Fallen  
> The Attack  
> Gold Is Always Right  
> Springing the Trap  
> Reagan Hill, at your service  
> Dudley, redux  
> Harry, I’ve found you!  
> A spy revealed  
> In dungeon dark

5\. A Bolt from the Blue

Fleur Delacour inspected herself in the mirror. Despite her looks, she was not particularly vain. Instead, she had a confidence that came with having always been one of the most attractive people in the room, along with the insecurity of always suspecting the motives of those close to her. Did they like her, desire her, wish to get close in order to sabotage or humiliate her? It was a tiresome game and one which Bill Weasley had never seemed very interested in playing.

 _Mon cher Guillaume_ , she thought, _how I wish this day was over, and we were sharing our bed as husband and wife._

Normally, wearing makeup with skin and colouring like Fleur’s would be gilding the lily, but today as a concession to the occasion she had darkened her fair lashes somewhat, so as to better appear in the photographs, and added a slight shade of red to her pink lips, barely enough that with suitable enthusiasm she should be able to mark Bill after the ceremony, just in case anyone dared believe that she would not protect what was hers.

“ _Ginevre_ , _ma petite,_ where is Gabrielle? She has my wand and my veil.”

Ginny twitched her mouth at the Francophone shift in her name, but let it pass. It was Fleur’s day, and Ginny was indulging her.

“I have your wand. Gabrielle said it ruined the line of her dress, and there is no way I wasn’t going to be carrying mine anyway.” Ginny thought for a moment. “I believe your veil went with her, however. Would you like me to go check?”

Fleur sighed. “ _Non_ , thank you. You already help me so much, I do not wish for you to be, how is it? ‘ _Put out_ ,’ for me any further.”

Ginny softened her expression. “Really, it’s no trouble. Anything to keep busy.”

Fleur turned, and pulled Ginny next to her, regarding them both in the mirror.

“How beautiful you are today, _Ginevre_. With your hair up, one can see your face, your lovely eyes. And that hair? With such hair, I could sweep the Champs-Élysées clear of men from nine to ninety in the matter of a quarter-hour.”

“Oh, go on,” Ginny said, blushing, but also examining her own reflection more closely. She had abandoned all resistance to Fleur and Gabrielle, and found her hair up, with twisting ringlets falling by each ear, and her lips a slightly darker shade than usual. A great deal of time had gone into making it look like she was wearing no makeup at all, but she seemed somehow a much more beautiful version of herself. “No one will notice me, not with you and Gabrielle around.”

“Your _petite copine_ , Susan?” Fleur said, checking the name, “She should see you like this. She would find you impossible to resist. I am proud to have you next to me today. I thank you.”

Blushing, Ginny looked down at her feet. “Let me see if I can track down your sister and that veil.”

“My other sister, you mean,” Fleur said. “For today, you and I and Gabrielle, we are to be sisters together. No longer alone with all the brothers, yes?”

“Well, Bill will certainly have something to say about that, I guess,” Ginny said with a grin. “I’ll be right back after I find Gabrielle.”

“Ow! Bloody hell!” Bill grabbed at his throat, where the blade had opened a thin cut that now welled with drops of blood.

“For goodness sake, Bill!” 

Ron stepped in, pushing away Bill’s wand. Ron waved his own wand, and the enchanted razor began neatly removing the short, rust-colored bristles from Bill’s face, carefully navigating the uneven flesh of his scars. The ugly, raw-looking scar tissue was largely hairless, at least, which made shaving slightly easier. “There are simpler ways to get out of a wedding than cutting your throat, you know?”

“Have you met my delicate flower of a fiancée?” Bill grimaced, again endangering his face, but Ron, with all the exaggerated care of a young man who had only recently begun shaving his own face, carefully completed a clean shave of his brother. “Not bad, Ron. Not bad at all. If this saving the world thing doesn’t pay out for you, you’d make a dab hand as a barber.”

“It would be hard to make a face like yours worse, Bill,” Ron chided, then gasped. “Oh! I’m sorry—I didn’t mean—”

Bill clapped a hand on Ron’s shoulder while dabbing at the small cut he’d inflicted during his own attempts at neatening up his shave.

“It’s all right, Ron. Believe me, if I was self-conscious about these scars still, there wouldn’t be a tent full of guests arriving outside for us.”

Ron grinned. “Okay, okay, you’ve convinced me. But if you’re not nervous, can you explain why your trousers are on back to front?”

“Nervous?” The short, rather soft-looking man, wearing formal but simple dress robes addressed the taller, more slender woman on his arm. Her brassy blonde curls were a striking contrast to his own prematurely receding reddish bristles.

“Of course I’m nervous, _Walter_ ,” she said, emphasizing the name in an attempt to not forget it. She continued, her voice softer and more discrete. “I don’t have nearly the practice holding a disguise that you’ve had.”

He guided her to a table of light refreshments, and took two tall flutes of sparkling mead. She took her glass and began to protest, until she saw his wand in his hand.

“Relax, Clara,” he said smoothly, carefully using _Disnatura_ to remove even the mild intoxicating quality from the drinks. His actions were subtle, inconspicuous, even though she was watching him and knew what he was doing.

“You really are awfully good at this, Harry,” she whispered. She continued, more openly, “Thank you, dear.”

“Of course, my love,” he said earnestly, guiding her to a small open area where soft music was playing, and various younger guests were standing and chatting.

“ _Bonjour_ , lovely to see you today,” said M. Delacour, his balding head adorned with a tall top hat, and an ornate boutineer tucked into his cerulean robes. “I must apologize, but you are friends of the groom?”

He looked politely from one of them to the other, and “Clara” answered, “ _Bonjour, Monsieur._ Yes, we are friends of Bill, erm, from school. Hogwarts. Just me. Walter is his cousin, on his father’s side of course. I was in Bill’s NEWT course for Charms, you see—”

“Now, love, I’m sure Mr. Delacour has many guests to speak to. Mustn’t monopolize his time.”

“No, no!” The father of the bride smiled, but even then it was clear that someone was gesturing for his attention. “Thank you so much for coming, and enjoy yourselves.” 

He glided away, weaving through the gathering crowd, dispensing greetings and handshakes and the odd polite bow along the way.

“Careful,” whispered Harry, while smiling around a sip of mead. “Just because you speak French doesn’t mean that Clara should. And don’t over-elaborate. Keep it simple.”

She smiled, while saying quietly, “I panicked! How do you keep all of this straight?”

“Relax, my love, you seem far too tense. Perhaps a bite of something to eat would settle you? I’m sure I saw some ‘pateet fowerz’ on one of these tables.” Walter mangled the simple French sweets’ name as if stomping on it with boots.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” They heard a small bell chime, and two of the younger Weasley cousins present began to move guests to their seats. She murmured, more to herself than to Walter, “And hearing you call me ‘my love’ every thirty seconds is a bit distracting as well.”

When they were seated, Walter leaned his head close and said, “This is weird for the both of us, but steady on.”

Soon the ceremony was underway. Fleur, of course, was ethereally beautiful, attended by Ginny and Gabrielle. She wore a cream-coloured gown which enhanced her obvious charms primarily by concealing them, leaving much to the imagination, and a veil spun of fairy cobwebs which did nothing to hide her features, but instead served mainly as the vehicle for a spray of tiny droplet-shaped pearls, each set in white gold, that glistened and gleamed in the sunlight.

Bill, in dark red cutaway robes and striped trousers tucked into his dragon-hide boots with cold-iron buckles, was a dark and dashing contrast to his fair bride. The usual strip of dragon-hide which bound his ponytail had been replaced by a white gold band, affixed with a large pearl in the center, to compliment Fleur’s veil. Standing with Bill were Ron and Fred, while George busied himself with coordinating the music, the refreshments, and the attentions of the relatively few younger unescorted witches in attendance.

Molly and Arthur, looking out of place in their formal attire, beamed with unrestrained pride as Bill stated his vows, both in English, then again in surprisingly well-rehearsed French. When Fleur began her vows, first in lilting French and then in accented but precise English, Monsieur and Madame Delacour wept unashamedly. When the ceremony was over, the dancing and celebrating began in earnest. For the older witches and wizards among the guests, there was a certain grim desperation to the merriment, as if they were all aware that a chance such as this might not come again. The absence of infants and children, or the very elderly, also hinted at the security measures in place.

Bill and Fleur surprised no one with their enthusiastic dancing, clearly having eyes only for one another. As more couples joined in, Gabrielle viewed the assortment of older wizards dimly, before grabbing Ginny by the hand and pulling her into a sensuous, scandalous slow dance. Her new sister in law blushed to the point of radiance but obviously enjoyed herself. A few wizards and more than one witch discretely fanned themselves or gulped at their drinks while watching the pair of young witches, redhead and blonde, enjoying themselves on the dance floor.

“She best hope that Susan doesn’t hear about this,” muttered Clara.

“Come on, onto the floor,” Walter said, taking her by the hand.

“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” she protested. “We should be keeping our eyes open.”

“Easier to look around while moving. It would be suspicious to sit and gawk about.” Walter spun her onto the floor, then pulled her back into an embrace.

“Where did you learn that?” she gasped, feeling his body tight against hers, and they began to move while carefully observing the environment around the magically extended pavilion.

“Neville. Turns out his Gran insisted he learn, and he’s got a passion for it.” Walter smiled, then his smile faltered at the memory of Augusta Longbottom.

It was at this point that Ron Weasley, his hair slicked down and wearing a deep maroon coat to match his brothers’, cut in.

“Sorry, sir,” he said to his ‘cousin Walter,’ as he eagerly took Clara’s hand, “Can’t help myself.”

“Not at all, old man,” Walter said, spotting an unexpected friend among the seated guests. “You two enjoy yourselves.”

Walter moved to a small table, occupied only by a young Goblin, who was sipping pure grain alcohol delicately from a small tankard.

Ron and Clara danced, and as the music slowed they found themselves embracing, barely swaying as they held one another.

“You’re very beautiful, you know,” Ron whispered. He breathed in her familiar scent with great relish.

“Thank you very much, Ronald,” Clara replied coolly. “If I’d known you preferred me blonde and gangly I might have disguised myself for you before.”

“Don’t pout, Hermione,” he said beseechingly. “I don’t mean the way you look right now. I don’t give a hippogriff’s hind end how you look, right now or any other time. I just meant you. I think _you_ are very beautiful, and I wanted to tell you.”

Hermione, her cheeks flaming, looked away, and something she saw made her pause, almost getting Ronald’s large foot on her toes.

“Hello, friend Goblin,” Walter said, wondering how to introduce himself.

“Hello, Harry Potter,” Thordrum the Goblin said casually.

Harry’s eyes grew wide, and he quickly looked about to see if they’d been overheard.

“Sorry, was that a secret?” Throdrum lowered his voice slightly. “Better use polyjuice next time, young wizard. Goblins can see through most glamors, you know.”

“Well, I know it now.” Harry was relieved that his identity seemed to be unknown by the others present. “I am pleased to see you. I thought you would still be off pursuing your studies in The Nation.”

Thordrum sighed, and took a rather larger sip of his liquor.

“If only I was. There were some…difficulties upon my return. It seems that my enthusiasm for the rune-based work we did together was viewed as disrespectful towards our own traditions. There were some disagreements. Perhaps a few dislodged teeth here and there. It was a spirited debate. Even though our work was not only of the best quality, it also saved time—and Time is Money!”

“Time is Money,” Harry related politely, earning a tearful look from the young Goblin artisan. “So what happened?”

“They were so eager to have me gone from the guild-house, they bestowed a name upon me and sent me back to Gringotts. Although, such a shameful thing it was, no one there will work with me, save for Bill and his curse-breakers.”

“What could be shameful about a name, Thordrum?” Harry was wishing he had paid even the slightest attention to Professor Binns, who had lectured endlessly on Goblins and their culture during his monotonous History of Magic courses.

Thordrum sighed, and raised his tankard.

“A toast,” he exclaimed miserably, “to Graduated Craftsgoblin Thordrum Wizardlover.”

“Oh, bollocks,” said Harry as Throdrum drained his tankard dejectedly.

Ron tried to be casual as he observed the area Hermione had been looking.

“I still don’t see anything,” he admitted at last. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“Maybe I’m just making myself paranoid,” she said. “I just swore something was moving in that hedge, but if you don’t see it maybe I was—what?”

Ron had stopped cold, and his eyes narrowed.

“I have to signal the others.” He reached into his robe and took out a small stone covered in tiny runes and began to rub small circles on it with his thumb. “We’ve never _had_ a hedge there.”

Just at that moment, a silver lynx Patronus sprang into the tent on broad, silent feet, and the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt cut through the faltering conversation and music.

_“The Ministry has fallen. Scrimgeour is taken and my Aurors are under siege. They're coming."_

Before terror could arise from the confusion, the amplified voice of Arthur Weasley boomed out.

“Steady on, people. We knew this was a possibility. The centerpieces on the tables are portkeys, and they’ll take you to a spot where you can freely Apparate. If you cannot Apparate, we’ll have someone to take you in a few minutes. Stay calm, everyone.”

“This is it,” Hermione said, drawing her wand. “Good luck, Ronald. And be careful!”

Ron was already moving, and called back over his shoulder, “You too, love!”

Despite Arthur’s instructions, there was naturally confusion and indecision as individuals began to portkey away, while others seemed ready to fight. Fleur and Bill were back to back, wands raised, in the center of the dance floor. She cursed and pulled her veil away, letting it fall underfoot as people moved to leave.

“ _Non, Maman!_ ” Gabrielle’s high, clear voice was heard over the confusion, and her mother collected her by main force and stuffed her into her father’s arms, as he snatched a bouquet from a nearby table.

 _“Adieu, ma cher!”_ he called out, and with a wink he and Gabrielle were gone. Apolline began to gather witches and wizards who would need help to Apparate, and funnel them to the Weasley twins. Fred and George, enthusiastic Apparators both, were prepared to dash with them two by two toward the limit of the Apparition-blocking spells and escort them to safety.

The suspicious hedge at the edge of the lawn suddenly gave forth a muted bang and dissolved into mist. From that mist emerged Death Eaters, wearing their black robes and disturbing masks, their ranks bolstered by a motley assortment of hedge-wizards, each adorned with the Black Band. Before the mist had cleared, curses and jinxes were flying into the thinning crowd.

Harry, still disguised, drew his wand and moved for a clear shot, only to find more Black Band and at least six more Death Eaters coming from the far side, trying to catch the wedding guests in a crossfire. He dodged several times while looking for cover, before transfiguring the ground in front of him into a low berm and falling behind it. He saw that Thordrum, his fine cloak smoldering from a glancing blow by a curse, had followed him, and had drawn a large knife, with a hilt like a sword, from somewhere, and he was looking around eagerly, eyes bright.

“Go!” Harry shouted. “This isn’t your fight!”

“I extended this pavilion,” Thordrum explained with feral glee. “They paid for the guarantee.”

Harry took down a Black Band wizard with a quick stunner, then ducked as one of the Death Eaters sent a spray of flames over his head, allowing a brace of hedge-wizards to advance towards the remaining guests.

Thordrum, covering his eyes with his crooked arm but otherwise seemingly disdainful of the flames, vaulted the low berm with surprising agility.

“ _Gold is always right!_ ” Harry heard him shout as he bowled into the shocked hedge-wizards, knife flashing, and they all went down in a heap.

Molly and Arthur were defending the remaining guests with a variety of shields, but the sickly green arcs of killing curses began to come from the Death Eaters and one or two of the stronger Black Band, and the tide was threatening to turn.

Hermione found herself in a standoff. She was sure she could outduel the Death Eater who was pressing her if she was not busy dealing with the constant, and sometimes wildly uncontrolled, magic from the cluster of hedge-wizards and witches surrounding him. She changed her tactics and shifted her attack from the Death Eater to the Black Band.

From across the pavilion, Ron saw the Death Eater facing Hermione suddenly revealed as his troops were sent down, some diving for cover and a few blasted off their feet by Hermione’s precise spellwork. For a moment, the Death Eater was completely exposed, all of his attention on the witches and wizards in front of him.

Ron held the charmed runestone to his lips, “Target, Death Eater, exposed to the south.” 

“Roger, engaging.” The voice from the stone sounded incredibly calm amid the chaos of the battle.

Over 800 yards away, on top of the black cylindrical house that was home to both the offices of _The Quibbler_ and also its editor and publisher, Xenophilius Lovegood, a fit young man with a touch of ginger in his beard was looking through the polished glass optics of a Schmidt & Bender 6×42 telescopic sight. The precisely engineered-mechanism was affixed to an L96A1 rifle, formerly the property of the British Army and now officially listed as ‘lost during deployment’ in Bosnia some years previously. A soft cloth hat kept the setting sun from the young man’s face, and he breathed carefully as he squeezed the double-action trigger, feeling as much as seeing the gentle tug of wind on the grass by the Death Eater’s feet, compensating for the tiny perturbations of the twenty-six-inch barrel caused by his own steady heartbeat.

He breathed in gently, watching the Death Eater move to raise his wand towards the disguised Hermione Granger. He exhaled, paused for a space of two heartbeats, and pulled the trigger. Even with the suppressor, the sound was surprisingly loud as the 7.62x51 mm NATO round sped on its way downrange. The idea of “silencing” a rifle of this power was the stuff of fantasy.

For centuries, witches and wizards had been trained in defensive magic to protect them from Muggle dangers. Many, by the time they held their first wand, were effectively immune to fisticuffs or other minor obstacles of the natural world. A trained witch with a wand in her hand, before she left Hogwarts, knew spells designed to stop a bullet while still in the gun barrel, in theory.

These spells were now centuries old and well-proven… against the firearms of the 18th or 19th century. The wizarding world is conservative, clinging to tradition and slow to change. The relationship of Muggles to firearms is neither of these things. If most British wizard folk were told that a Muggle with a gun, hundreds of yards away, could be a threat they would have laughed, or perhaps given winking deference to the idea.

Hermione Granger saw the Death Eater’s wand rise, and instinct told her a shield or countercurse here would not suffice. She gathered herself to dive aside, too slow, too late, and she saw the wild eyes behind the mask grow wide with fanatical glee as she heard the curse.

“ _Avada K—_ ”

And then, hood and mask, blood and bone, exploded into a gory spray, and the Death Eater, now nearly headless, dropped as if someone had thrown a switch. As his body lay on the lawn, heart pumping warm arterial blood in a spurting fountain onto the rich green grass, the closest hedge-wizard began to scream. Hermione stood, herself dumbfounded at the sudden and remote violence done upon the man who had meant to kill her. After a long moment, from the clear, late summer skies, she heard the distant sound of thunder. 

850 yards away, Reagan Hill, formerly Corporal of the British Army, brother to witch Sally Beck-Hill, uncle to her wizard son Douglas Beck-Hill, friend of Nymphadora Tonks, and combat instructor to Harry Potter, chambered another round. He spoke into his runestone.

“Next target?”

One member of the Black Band, disobeying orders, had angled towards the Burrow, the Weasley house. He had already visited their neighbors, the Lovegoods, where he’d enjoyed some casual grave robbery, but had been disappointed to find no opportunity for theft, assault, or the other, more interesting activities he favored. The small, cocksure man sidled into the house, looking around eagerly.

To his disappointment, the house of a Department Head and an ancient and respected family seemed surprisingly… ordinary. Hand-knit throws on battered furniture, common crockery in the kitchen, an interesting clock that seemed too heavy to cart away. With growing frustration, he thought about looking upstairs before deciding to cut his losses and head back to the raid for a bit of recreational violence. It was then that he saw a thin lad on the stairs, watching him with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Hello, boy,” he said to the youth, raising his wand. “Come down, let me have a look at you.”

“Are you a friend of the Weasley’s?” The boy’s voice was thick, sluggish. Maybe he was simple, maybe he was drugged. 

“Just having a quick look about, looking for some fun.” He chuckled, and began to bob and weave his wand, back and forth. “What about you, laddy-boy? Are you? Fun?”

He leered and began to consider what he could do to the boy before he killed him. Or after.

“You don’t belong here,” the boy said, his heavy lids closing as he sighed.

“Where is your wand?” The Black Band wizard was wary, looking carefully at the boy’s hands. “Are you a squib? Is that why you’re hidden away, during the party?”

“Party?” The boy slowly looked out the window and shrank back. “Not to be seen, not be heard, not during a party.”

“Oh, this will be fun,” the small man said, advancing to arm’s length, and licking his lips as he raised his wand and prepared a body-bind jinx. “My beautiful boy.”

Dudley Dursley turned at this, his eyes suddenly wide and clear.

“Mummy’s beautiful boy!” He reached out and pushed his palm suddenly against the surprised wizard’s chest, and the wand dropped to the floor with a clatter. “Mummy’s special beautiful boy!”

The hedge-wizard gasped, and grabbed at his chest. He opened his mouth to speak, but smoke and steam billowed out, hissing like a tea kettle about to whistle. A flickering orange and yellow light shone out his open mouth, then through his eyes, his nostrils, his ears. His flesh warmed, glowed, and then there was a flash, and a dance of ash on the breeze from the open front door, and he was gone.

“Oh,” Dudley said, his voice dull once more, “the things you make me do.”

Almost negligently, he picked up the ownerless wand, and carried it upstairs with him. When he climbed into bed, he placed the wand gently under his pillow.

“The things you make me do,” he said again.

The morale of the Black Band was breaking. Instead of bewildered, complacent old wizards and witches, they were up against what appeared to be half of the Order of the Phoenix, a brace of Aurors, and some kind of unknown curse which called thunder from the blue beyond and made Death Eaters’ heads explode. As they ran for the boundary of the Apparition-blocking spells, they found Tonks, Neville and Luna Longbottom, and Susan Bones, firing stunners and disarming jinxes left and right. Neville had plants growing from the ground before their eyes to bind them, while Luna and Tonks methodically overpowered those who tried to turn and rejoin the battle. Those who insisted on fighting found grim Susan more than happy to live up to her proud surname, slashing and burning them down where they stood.

Ron and Harry approached them, to let them know the final cleanup was underway. Susan nearly cursed Harry, only to have Ron jump in front of him shouting for her to stand down. It was at that moment that a pair of wizards Apparated onto the meadow, just beyond the spell boundary.

“Tonks!” Carmichael, the Auror who had been her partner at the Ministry, called her name and moved towards her. “I heard of the attack. Is Harry here? Is he safe?”

“Get back!” The other wizard, his robes singed and smoldering, raised his wand. “Drop your wand!”

Ron felt the runestone in his hand buzzing with vibrations, but could not hear what Reagan was saying amid the shouting. Bill and Fleur, both unharmed and faces shining with savage excitement, came jogging over from the pavilion. Hermione, her disguise having failed her earlier, followed, her jeans and sleeveless top standing out amid the formalwear of the other wedding attendees.

“Bloody hell, Percy?” Ron gaped at his brother, who stood holding his side with his wand pointed unsteadily at the Auror, Carmichael. “Put that down before you hurt someone!”

Carmichael didn’t drop his wand, but he did raise his hands, eyeing Percy Weasley with disdain.

“Someone take his wand,” Carmichael said warily. “He was fighting us—at the Ministry—from behind, like a coward.”

“You sodding _prat_ ,” Ron seethed, moving between Carmichael and Percy,“and you call yourself a Weasley?!”

“Ron, don’t!” Harry moved with Bill towards Ron, and Percy cried out like a wounded animal, trying to get around his brothers, his wand pointed in Harry’s direction. Blood appeared to be soaking his robes on one side, near the still-smoldering burn.

“No, I have to kill him, you don’t understand!” Percy sounded desperate, frantic, his eyes round with madness. He’d lost his glasses, and he squinted suddenly towards Harry. “Who is that? Who’s there?”

“ _Stupify!_ ” Fleur, overlooked for perhaps the only time in her life, had angled around and hit Percy from the side with a stunner. He crumpled unceremoniously to the earth.

“Harry, stay back!” Ron cautioned as he kicked his stunned brother’s wand away across the grass. “Is he out, Bill?”

“Potter?” Carmichael asked, putting his hand on Harry’s shoulder, “I thought I’d never find you!”

“What?” Harry began to turn, taking one more step towards Carmichael and away from the pavilion.

* * *

Suddenly, Harry felt a compressing, sickening pull behind his navel, and with a swirling, jarring motion, he sped through a tube of nothingness only to be spat out at the other end. With nausea and surprise, he fell to his knees. A foot came down on his hand, hard, and he felt the familiar old sensation of bones breaking. He grunted through watering eyes as his wand was pulled away by unseen hands.

“And who have you brought us,” drawled Severus Snape, his loathsome voice burned forever into Harry’s memory. “I know this wand, and I’d know that stench of unearned, smug superiority anywhere.”

Harry managed to fight his way to his feet, and his heart raced as he took in Snape and Bellatrix Lestrange, flanked by the Malfoys, in the dark room. The place seemed familiar, but he had more important questions to deal with first. He turned and looked to the smirking Carmichael.

“Nothing personal, kid,” the Auror said. “But the Dark Lord made me a better deal. It’s just business.”

He nodded to Snape and the others.

“I better get back to the Ministry. The Unspeakables were putting up quite a bit of resistance, and I still have bounties I might collect.” With a quickly sketched salute, the Auror Apparated away.

Harry, wanting to concentrate all of his skill and attention, now that he was wandless, dropped his disguise.

“There he is,” chuckled Bellatrix, her dark eyes wide and wild. “There is the little beast who vexes me, who dares oppose our Dark Lord. Not so bold now, are you little Potterkins?”

“So,” Harry said with all the arrogance he could muster, “where is old He Must Not Be Nosed? Or am I stuck dealing with lackeys again?”

Snape had to move quickly to intercept the shrieking Bellatrix.

“Narcissa, you and your husband should take Bellatrix outside for some air. Check on the progress of the Carrows. Mr. Potter and I have catching up to do.”

When the struggling, spitting Bellatrix had been manhandled from the room, Snape approached Harry. “So sorry for the abrupt nature of your arrival, but I doubted you would accept my invitation otherwise.”

With no windup or hint of intention, Snape’s fist came flying, striking Harry in the temple and staggering him where he stood. 

“And that is for mocking the Dark Lord, you insignificant, self-important foundling trash.”

 _It’s shaping up to be a long evening_ , thought Harry.

* * *

In a bedroom of the Burrow, Molly held Percy’s head in her lap while she poured a restorative draught down his throat. He coughed, and blinked rapidly, peering shortsightedly about.

“Mother?”

“I’m here, son.” Her voice was warm, but she sounded very much older than the last time she had tried to get Percy to speak with her. Distantly, the sound of the remaining guests below drifted up the stairs.

“Harry!” Percy tried to rise, and winced, clutching his side.

“Lie still,” Molly warned him. That’s a nasty wound, and you took a full-strength stunner at short range as well.”

“Can someone explain what’s going on?” Tonks, barely restrained by Neville and Luna, was trying to get close to Percy as well. “What happened to you, what happened with Carmichael, and where has he taken Harry?”

“He got Harry?” Percy shuddered, and lay back, going limp so that his mother gasped and began feeling for his pulse. He reached up and feebly batted her hand away. “If Carmichael took Harry, then I’ve failed. He was a spy, inside the Ministry, for You Know Who.”

“What?” Tonks paled. “Impossible. He’s a top Auror. He stood guard at Hogwarts over Harry with me!”

“He was careful. He even hunted Death Eaters, but only ones who had already been discovered, the ones they could afford to sacrifice. He’s been working for the other side for years.”

“How do we know?” Susan was looking at Percy shrewdly. “I mean, you were the one always putting the Ministry over everything, even your own family…”

She looked at the shocked faces of the others. She shrugged. “You’ve all thought it. I just said it, that's all.”

“Everything Percy has done since You Know Who’s return has been under orders,” Arthur Weasley said, avoiding his wife’s curious gaze.

“Father, please,” Percy said, weakly motioning towards Arthur.

“No, my dear lad, it’s time. There’s naught to be gained now.” Arthur took a deep breath. “When You Know Who returned, Dumbledore took me and Percy into his confidence. He knew a time would come when the Ministry would be challenged, and that it might fail us. Percy was smart, hard-working, respected. With my help, he was a certainty for the Ministry, and he played it perfectly. Smug, supercilious, and just a bit too obviously ambitious. He’s been reporting to Dumbledore ever since. When the Headmaster died, I wanted Percy to come home, but he wouldn’t hear of it. Insisted on saying until the last moment, learning whatever he could.”

Arthur put his hand on his son's shoulder. “I’d say you cut it a bit fine, son, a bit too fine.”

“You kept this? From me?” Molly looked from husband to son and back again.

“Audrey,” Percy said weakly. “It was all for her.”

“Who is Audrey?” Ginny whispered to Ron, who shrugged.

Arthur, hearing this, wisely addressed his wife rather than his children.

“Percy has a fiancée, for over a year. She’s, erm, well—”

“She’s a Muggle, Mother,” Percy said. “A beautiful, wonderful, adorable Muggle.”

Tonks looked at Harry’s friends, gathering them by eye, and they moved aside, letting the Weasley family come to terms with these revelations. Ron and Ginny pulled themselves away, joining the others.

“We have to find Harry,” Tonks began, but Ron interrupted her.

“No,” he said. “Harry and I discussed this, and he knew he might be taken. It was always a risk. Right now, we need to get back to the flat and clean everything out, quickly. We know Harry can resist most questioning, but any vow, any pact, _anyone_ can be broken given time. We didn’t decide where to go, so he couldn’t tell under interrogation.”

“My house,” Neville said at once. “It’s been abandoned since they killed my Gran, but the wards are still keyed to me, and it’s rather large. It should be easy to secure some part of it.”

“I don’t care what you all say, I’m going to go find Harry, if I have to turn over Britain stone by stone,” Tonks said, and she looked ready to do just that.

“If he’s dead already, do you want it to be for nothing?” Susan, again, was the cold voice of logic. Ginny gasped when Tonks slapped her fully across the face, but Susan didn’t react.

“Harry is alive,” Tonks said firmly.

“Let’s see what we can do to keep it that way,” Hermione said, trying to broker peace. “Tonks, why don’t you take Ginny back to the flat side-along. We daren’t trust the floo at all anymore.”

Ron spoke up. “Ginny, go. I’ll check on the rest of the family, and see you at the flat as soon as I talk to Reagan Hill.”

To his surprise, she embraced him, and put a kiss on his cheek.

“Be careful. And that wasn’t for you, that was for Bill and Fleur, so pass it along.”

“Right,” he said. “To Fleur, anyway.”

Hermione dug into his ribs and prepared to Apparate away.

“Wait,” she said suddenly. “There is a Goblin I want to speak to, if he’s still downstairs or if Bill knows how to reach him. I’ll see you at the flat.”

Ron looked at his watch. It was only six o’clock. It felt like the wedding had been days ago.

“Okay, everyone. Be back to the flat by eight o’clock, or we’re sending out the hounds. Be safe.”

“Be safe,” they replied and began to head to their various destinations.

“Hermione?” Ron said as she was heading for the stairs, looking for Throdrum.

“Yes?”

“Thanks for the dance. The best part of the day, all things considered.” He grinned.

She punched him gently on the arm. “Go on, you great flirt.”

He could not see the grin on her face as she went looking for a Goblin.

* * *

Harry, bound to a chair in a dungeon, sat up, suddenly.

“We were in Snape’s old office,” he said aloud into the darkness. “But, you can’t Apparate into Hogwarts. How the fuck, did they get on to the grounds?”

From the dark cell across from his in the gloomy dungeon, he heard a familiar though strained voice.

“Language, Mr. Potter.”

“Professor McGonagall?” Harry cried out in relief and fear. “Is that you?”

“Of course it is I, Mr. Potter,” she said with some asperity, and he heard chains clinking as she moved. “Which I imagine answers your previous question.”

“No,” Harry said, his stomach dropping and his mouth going dry, “It can’t be!”

“I assure you, it can be because, sadly, it is.” McGonagall’s voice was tired, and her words bleak. “He Who Must Not Be Named has taken Hogwarts.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [update: edited for minor spelling and other issues]
> 
> [another update: corrected the details of Reagan's rifle after jonbro55 kindly pointed out I had grabbed the wrong notecard and was describing an anachronistic firearm. Thanks, jonbro!]
> 
> Nice to bring Reagan back, and another little taste of the New Dudley.
> 
> I've never really written Fleur and Gabrielle, so that was fun. I wish I had time to describe more of what Fleur and Bill were doing during the fight, but the chapter was already over 6,000 words. 
> 
> Are you worried about Susan Bones? I'm starting to worry about Susan Bones.
> 
> To those who were SURE Percy was the spy: Well, you were half right...
> 
> Thordrum was a last-minute addition, but I see where he fits now. I knew we fleshed him out for a reason.
> 
> Of course, I realize now that I made a mistake in a far previous chapter, moving a piece I need from where it was to another space on the board, and wishing I could take it back. Ah, well.
> 
> Sorry for the explicit headshot, but I wanted to convey the shock and awe impact on the Black Band, and that necessitated a certain level of graphic realism.


	6. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fall Back-“The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley.”
> 
> The Terror  
> Longbottom Estate  
> Put to the Question  
> Keep Calm and Carry On  
> Tom’s Got Mail  
> Harry in the Darkness
> 
> Warnings: Major Character Death. Tonks on Fire. Torture. Here Be Dragons. Animal Cruelty. Self-harm.

**6\. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley**

Malcolm Creevey had finished his deliveries early, for a change. Instead of dragging himself home just before tea, he had checked in his float at the dairy and made the early train and was nearly home at one o’clock. He knew the boys were likely still busy in their darkroom, so he’d picked up cheeseburgers and chips. Colin and Dennis rarely got such treats outside of school, so he wanted to share something special while he had both boys home.

Turning from the lane into his front garden, Malcolm saw that the front door was standing half-open. His boys were both energetic, excitable lads, It was not unheard of for them to tear after one another in the pursuit of something which had caught their attention. Still, something immediately triggered a primal response in Malcolm’s subconscious. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and the bag of cheeseburgers fell to the path at the front gate.

“Boys?” He did not run to the door. In fact, he found himself slowing, treading with caution tinged with dread towards his own home.

“Boys?” He pushed the door open, and in the front room, he saw overturned furniture, scattered belongings. “Boys!” He ran now, from room to room, until he found the door to the darkroom in the garden shed hanging from its shattered hinges.

Then, on the threshold, Malcolm found the most terrifying sight. Two highly-polished rods of wood splintered into roughly even pieces. His boys’ pride and joys, even more than their cameras, lay broken on the doorstep of the shed. Two wands snapped and sundered, with charred cores exposed, lay on the lawn, surrounded by dying grass and the evidence of trauma.

His boys were gone, and their wands were broken. Without his boys, he didn’t even know how to contact the wizard authorities. He gathered the remains of the once-cherished wands and cradled them to his chest. He fell to his knees and tears rolled down his cheeks as he looked about, lost and at a loss, helpless and hopeless. 

* * *

Kelly Allen, a bright girl of eleven, alight with an active curiosity and a caring nature, walked along the tow-path by the canal in Weybridge, Surrey. It was a bright, late summer afternoon, and she was enjoying some time alone as she walked home from her friend Karen’s house. Karen and her mother lived just over the canal from the Allens, but Kelly had to walk a quarter-mile to the locks which lowered the canal down the hill in order to cross over. It was this return leg she was walking when she saw a large owl swoop overhead in the direction of her house.

She grinned and began to run. While the owl could be bringing any post, she reasoned that it was just about the perfect day for her to get her Hogwarts letter, as her mother and father had in their day, and as her little brother would in another two years’ time. She slowed to a jog, winded, as she neared her house. She spotted her father in the front garden, just releasing the owl, and she stopped for a moment to compose herself. Getting one’s Hogwarts letter is a serious business, akin to getting your wand, having your first snog, or being sorted into your house. Running to her father and collapsing with a stitch in her side would just not be proper form.

Despite the Muggle family which lived just two doors down, Kelly saw two wizards appear suddenly, near her father. He turned to speak to them, looking over his shoulder at the Muggles’ house. During this moment of distraction, one of the unfamiliar wizards drew his wand, and her father collapsed, stunned.

Kelly’s first instinct was to run to her father, but if he was stunned, as he appeared to be, there was nothing she could do for him. She wasn’t a trained and licensed witch. She didn’t even have her first wand yet. She ducked close to a neighbor’s hedge, trying to see if her father was all right while not drawing attention to herself. She gasped when the two strangers, wands ready, moved warily through her front door.

Caution forgotten, she ran for the house herself.

“Mum! Mum!” Her voice was weak, raspy from fear and running. She doubted her mother could have heard her even if not for the fear choking Kelly’s throat. She saw that her father was breathing, at any rate, and she picked up his wand from where it had fallen when he was stunned. She heard noises inside, and as the strange wizards left her house, she paused.

Now that she was closer, she saw that one of them wore the robes of an Auror, and moved with confident authority. She instinctively lowered her father’s wand, it’s unfamiliar weight in her small hand seeming enormous, perhaps in part from the taboo act of wielding her parent’s wand.

“Hello there,” said the Auror, smiling and kneeling, putting his face at her level. “Is that you, Kelly Allen?”

She nodded.

“What did you do to my father?” Her voice was quiet and tremulous.

“Oh, don’t worry. Your father will be fine, just a little misunderstanding.” He reached a hand toward her with a kind smile. He was lean and hard, but he wore a neatly pressed Auror’s uniform and seemed very sure of himself. She took his hand.

“That’s a good girl.” His smile didn’t waver as he quickly bent her wrist and twisted, causing agony to explode in her arm and shoulder, and her father’s wand to fall to the ground. He shoved her roughly at the man behind him, a broad-shouldered, heavyset mad with a bald head and a black band sewn onto the sleeves of his robes.

She cried out and then saw the leering grin of the bald man as he grabbed both of her hands in one of his. Something in his eyes scared her more than the Auror who had just hurt her did, and she stood, mutely.

She felt a twist and pull, and her house, her village, the canal, and her father laying on the grass swirled and collapsed as she was pulled along in Apparition, only to find herself painfully stumbling and falling onto cobblestones a moment later. She held her bruised knee and tried to look about and reason out where she had been taken. She saw an iron gate a few yards away, and followed it up with her eyes, until she was able to resolve a large castle, with a number of towers and windows.

“It’s just like in ‘Hogwarts, a History,’ isn’t it?” she breathed.

From inside the gate came a group of teens, not obviously students from the cut and colour of their robes. Each of the tough-looking teens wore a black band on their arm and a sneer or other snarl of contempt on their features.

“Little young for precious ‘ogwarts, innit?” The biggest of them looked down on her.

Auror Carmichael nodded brusquely. He got no particular joy from this part. It was just a job.

“She hasn’t even a wand yet. Put her in the Great Hall with the others.”

Two teens grabbed her by the arms and marched her inside. Once she passed the gates, she saw a rough guard shack, hastily erected near the gate, and another on the path that led towards a dark and distant wood. Finally realizing the gravity of her situation, Kelly began to cry, then to scream. One of the teens moving her, tall, rather a pretty girl with long brown hair cut in a fashionable style, leaned down closer to her face.

“Miss, hey, miss?” Her tone was pleasant, her face open and honest.

Kelly sniffled and rubbed her eyes on her sleeve.

“Y-yes?”

The girl put her hand on Kelly’s shoulder in a sisterly way.

“If you run your gob like that for one more second,” she said, her voice still warm, “I will cut your throat and pull your tongue through the hole like a feckin’ necktie, got it? Great!”

Her friends laughed, and they took the shocked little witch along and brought her to the Great Hall, where she found herself grouped with a half dozen others her age, alongside other groups separated by age, each watched over by a teen or adult with the black band on their arms.

She was given a small square of blanket, and ignoring the questions and overtures of the others around her. Holding herself in her cold arms, she fell asleep with tears still sliding down her cheeks.

* * *

With multiple cracks of Apparition, the members of the resistance, absent Harry and Tonks, arrived outside Longbottom House. Ron and Hermione quickly faced opposing directions, scanning the grounds for threats. Susan and Ginny arrived holding tight to opposite ends of a Silver Thread, a magical aid to moving luggage and supplies with a form of side-along Apparition. Neville arrived at the threshold, his wand out, and a charm already on his lips. His wife Luna arrived at his back, covering behind him, her face calm and serious.

Neville cast a few charms, and the sealed door shivered with light and opened. He entered, wand up and wary, calling back to the others.

“Tonks was right!: His voice was tight, controlled. “Standard Auror seal on the door, but the family blood wards let me pass.”

There was a brief pause, and they heard his voice from deeper within.

“Okay, everyone inside. Hermione, seal the door.” 

They quickly moved inside with their belongings, and Hermione charmed the door closed and locked, taking time to strengthen the doorframe and the surrounding walls. When she finished, she went down the entrance hall, noting damage, ruined plants, and artworks littering the way.

She thought she had seen the damage, until she entered the main hall, and saw the others, clustered uneasily around the perimeter of the room.

There were scorch marks everywhere. Pieces of furniture abruptly ended, as though an invisible circle had sundered and burned everything within a radius centered on a spot near the huge stone fireplace which was the focus of the old manor house. In addition, patches of ash and char adorned the walls, ceilings, and floors. One window had been shattered, another crazed and rippled as if by unknowable heat. The last stand of Augusta Longbottom had wreaked a toll on her home, and the scars of her defiance were visible on every surface, down to the very bones of the mansion.

Neville stood, a step from where she had finally fallen, and silently took in the ruin of the once genteel hall of Longbottom House. Luna moved to him after a minute or so and put a hand on his arm. He shook himself, as if awaking from a daydream, and turned to the others.

“Take a look, friends.” His voice was clear and his chin set. He took them in by eye, one at a time. “We needed to see this.”

He gestured, not just at the spot of his Gran’s death, but at all of the damage to the house.

“Gran knew what she was doing. She knew she could not win, would not run, and must not fall without extracting her price.” He grinned grimly. “Her price was high, I think. Two fewer Death Eaters for us to world about, and another who will think twice about facing the house of Longbottom and our friends.”

Luna took his hand. “I love you, Neville. She’d be proud of you.”

“Not yet,” he said. “She’s still up by two, but I’ll get my innings.”

Ron caught his eye, and Neville nodded. 

“Okay, you lot,” Ron said. “Susan and Ginny, get that fireplace cleared and see if Tonks has managed the unlicensed floo connection to Carnaby Street and the Burrow yet.”

He gestured to the baggage. “Luna, Neville, figure out which rooms are sound, and can be made safe, and get people moved. Hermione and I will be checking wards, setting some hexes and curses, and watching for any nasty surprises the Aurors missed.”

They began working, and the activity helped distract them from the dire fact that Voldemort’s supporters now controlled the press and the government, and that their friend and greatest fighter had been taken by a traitor. Tonks had called in favors with what she hoped were friends remaining in the Ministry of Magic and had gone to her friend Violet in the Department of Magical Transport, hoping to set up an unregistered connection to the floo network for both their unplottable flat and the Weasley home. 

The latter would be their primary connection to the wizarding world but would have to be used sparingly in case of trouble at the Burrow. As for the former, should Harry manage to escape, his most likely destination would be the Carnaby Street flat so some means of contact must remain to them. Without knowledge of their new base of operations, Harry could not endanger them by divulging the connection. Also, as Susan had pointed out, Carnaby Street had been home to all of them, for less time or more, and it sent a message to themselves that they would not be permanently run out of their home by Voldemort’s minions.

They had paused together by informal agreement to eat a quick, cold meal in Neville’s old bedroom, which was one of a surprising six bedrooms which contained a floo-compatible grate. The others had begun to wonder exactly how well-off Neville and his family were. The estate was extensive, the finishings surprisingly tasteful, considering Augusta’s unique sense of fashion. 

The fire in the grate changed from a crackling yellow and red to an eldritch green, and they all drew their wands. With a flare and a popping sound, the floo network connected and Tonks barreled through, her robes smoldering and her hair literally on fire. She collapsed in the middle of the room.

Luna acted without hesitation, throwing a Gryffindor crest-emblazoned blanket over Tonks, and smothering the flames. Without any wasted motion, Luna unwrapped Tonks and lifted her chin to check her eyes critically.

“Tonks, do you know where you are?” Luna’s voice was serious, almost grave.

“Wotcher, Luna,” Tonks gasped. “Sorry for the dramatic entrance.”

Tonks grinned, and her eyes fluttered. She gasped, and her grin faded as she slumped to the floor.

* * *

Harry was strapped to a large plank, suspended at an angle over a container of coals, and the rising heat had already burned the hair from his abdomen and chest and was starting to blister the skin of his stomach.

August Rookwood, the former Auror-turned-Death Eater, watched with disgust, his own burns not yet healed from his encounter at Longbottom House. He was missing all the hair from one side of his face, and most of that ear as well, and had hacked the remaining hair short in a mostly failed attempt to make the damage less obvious. He finally shook his head.

“You’re right,” he told Severus Snape, who was watching dispassionately from the doorway. “Potter’s not just fighting off magical pain from the _Cruciatus_ , it’s physical pain, too.”

“I suspected as much,” Snape drawled, with a careless shrug. “I suspect we are not the first to attempt to torture young Potter, and physical punishments really are not our forte, despite your obvious, hum, gifts in that direction.”

“So what do we do know? Our Dark Lord still wants the location of the headmaster’s wand, the unplottable location where the children were hiding, and to know exactly how so many of our people were killed at that fucking wedding.” Rookwood pushed a hand through his short hair, wincing as some bristles pulled at his scarring. “This one should know all of that, I imagine. And where his friends are hiding.”

Snape regarded Harry, still stoically enduring the heat of the coals now burning his skin, though his heavy-lidded eyes.

“Only a fool relies on a single plan,” Snape said, gesturing behind him. 

The Carrow twins, Amycus and Alecto, entered escorting the disheveled but still proud figure of Headmistress McGonagall between them. She had a black eye and a split lip, which made Harry furious but seemed otherwise well. There was, however, a curious braided ribbon around her neck, and the skin around it was red and angry with welts. She stood tall, and after her eyes took in Harry’s condition, she stared Snape down in icy silence.

“You may remove the coals, Rookwood,” Snape said generously. “I have something rather different in mind.”

He drew a potion flask from beneath his batlike cloak.

“Veritaserum again? The boy won’t lie, but he has been able to stand mute.” Rookwood grumbled as he turned Harry, raising him fully upright, to see Snape and McGonagall in the center of the dungeon chamber. 

Harry could feel the skin on his stomach growing tight as it continued to blister, and there was a faint smell of burned chops which might have made him ill if they had fed him anything in the thirty hours he had been here under nearly constant questioning.

* * *

Tonks was wrapped in a blanket, drinking a cup of tea as the Longbottoms had no coffee and the French press had not made the list of emergency supplies, through what they all were now thinking was a critical oversight. Neville and Hermione had managed to repair most of the damage from her fire, and she assured them the rest would heal when she was recovered enough to transform again. She still had the physical ability, but she didn’t trust her mental focus without more rest, and no one wanted to see her scalp healed inside out, for example.

“So yeah, the floo connection seemed fine. I did have to create a magical contract to make the connection, even an untraceable one.”

“Won’t that be a problem?” Hermione was eyeing the floo grate suspiciously as if it might disgorge Death Eaters at any moment. “Once it’s found, they’ll know where we are.”

“You’d think so,” Tonks said with a tired grin. “But magical contracts, once signed, are inviolate. They cannot be modified… or translated. Violet did this one up for me, in Welsh.”

“You put a Welsh contract into the English filing system, one that cannot be translated by magic?” Rong grinned. “That’s beautiful. It will automatically go to the end of the queue for filing and inspection. With the chaos at the Ministry right now, it will take years, decades maybe, before they get to it.”

Tonks’s face fell. “About that chaos. There is none.”

“What do you mean, there is none?” Susan’s tone was dangerous.

“Sure, there are signs of some struggle, but it’s all being patched up, painted over. The whole place is running like nothing much has changed. A few faces missing, a few new ones, but it’s a lot of ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ from what I saw. Even in the Aurors.”

“You saw the Aurors!” Now it was Neville’s turn to repeat what she was telling them, apparently. “That’s crazy, didn’t they recognize…Oh. Yes.”

“Thank you,” Tonks said. “I just passed by on my way out, hoping to hear some discussion of how they’re looking for us, or what’s happening generally. Do you know what I heard? Business as usual. Licenses, a break-in at a shop in Diagon Alley.”

Ginny was chewing her thumbnail. “That’s so unreal. How did they get a Death Eater to walk a beat, like an Auror?”

“You don’t understand. I only saw two that I know or suspect to be Death Eaters while I was there. It’s the same people! The same officials, the same staff, just keeping their heads down and going to work. I even saw your father coming out of a meeting.”

“Dad went back to work?” Ron was incredulous, while Ginny just looked angry. “I thought they were following the Delacours to France.”

“You have a big family, Ron. It might not be possible to move everyone, so he’s probably hedging his bets until the last minute, hoping he can learn something. It’s what I would have done.”

He shook his head, still trying to adjust to the idea of his father as a functionary in Voldemort’s Ministry.

“And no word about Harry?” Luna spoke softly. She had been very quiet, even for her, since Tonks had returned. Only Neville knew the truth, that seeing Tonks burning had reminded her of her mother’s death, that Luna had learned at a young age what can be done to help someone who’s been set magically on fire… and what is beyond help.

“One thing, maybe related, maybe not, but it’s the only big news I found. Letting on that I had heard is what led to my daring and flammable exit, actually. It’s the kids. They’ve been apparating them, and in three days they start moving them on the Express. When I let slip that I’d heard this, they were wands-out and shooting with no warning. I didn’t grab enough floo powder, I guess. Hence the fire.”

“What kids, moving where?” Hermione had a suspicion, and she was desperately hoping she was wrong.

“All of the children, every underage wizard and witch they can find, even the ones without their letters yet.” Tonks shook her head, staring into her empty teacup and she gritted her teeth. “They’re rounding up every child they can snatch, and sending them all to Hogwarts without any permission.”

“They’ve started school early?” Ginny looked at the others in puzzlement.

“It’s not a school anymore,” Hermione said grimly. “It’s a prison camp.”

* * *

Lord Voldemort read the message which had just arrived by crow from another member of the Circle of Thanatos. Some messages were too delicate for even the Council of Flames, so he held in his pale, cool hands a message from Budapest, which would have turned into a cloud of deadly poison in any hand but his. 

Good news, for a change. In exchange only for agreeing to sanction action against the British Muggle Army in Gibraltar without interference, he was soon to take delivery of a nearly mature Hungarian Horntail, a vicious specimen well-suited to his needs. It would arrive, magically concealed among the cargo of a Dutch containership, by the equinox. By that time, he should be ready to enact his final solution to the Mudblood problem once and for all.

* * *

“Veritaserum? Not Veritaserum, no,” Snape mused laconically, as two older men, members of the Black Band, came into the dungeon chamber, each with a largish bull terrier on a lead. The dogs sniffed about curiously but did not seem particularly eager or vicious. After a moment they sat placidly. “No, not Veritaserum. This is something of my own devising, something I have been working on for quite some time. For years, in fact.”

He held up the flask, and a silvery-pale liquid moved slowly inside, thicker than water, coating the sides of the flask like a luminous gravy. He smiled.

“Alecto, the Anthropic Collar, if you would?”

The female twin reached behind the Headmistress’s neck with her wand, and the red ribbon came unfastened with a dim flash. Carrow withdrew, wrapping the red ribbon into a loop and stashing it within her robes. McGonagall raised her shackled hands to rub briefly at her the raw skin of her neck.

“You see, Potter, the difficulty of constraining an animagus such as the Headmistress here is that our dungeons were never designed to imprison, say, a cat. So, the Anthropic collar, which cannot be removed, yet prevents transformation.”

“I never liked you, Severus, but that’s because I thought you were a vain, melodramatic, bitter little man.” McGonagall frowned. “I never realized that you were a disgrace to wizardry and to this school as well, and frankly a bit of a cunt—excuse me, Harry—Not my mistake alone, scant comfort.”

“You see, Potter,” Snape went on, with the clipped tones Harry remembered from Snape’s potion lectures, his demeanor when he was interrupted by a right answer but was determined to belittle or degrade his charges anyway. “She could transform right now, but with the four of us here, plus our Black Band… friends… she would be in no better position. Rather the opposite, she’d be at a substantial disadvantage.”

He nodded and one of the Black Band men closed the door and secured the inside latch. His dog sniffed at the door, running his curious nose along the bottom before losing interest and sitting down again, mouth open and tongue lolling.

“But now, we have this,” Snape said grandly, flourishing the potion flask in his hand. “Of entirely my own devising— _Humor Cummutatio!_ ”

“Is this where you’re pausing for applause?” Harry asked softly, marshaling his breath to speak calmly and not betray his own fear and injury. “Because fuck you—Sorry, Headmistress.”

“An understandable breach, Harry,” McGonagall said, but Harry could see curious concern as she regarded Snape’s potion.

“Amycus?” At Snape’s polite-sounding word, the other Carrow twin suddenly swung his two balled fists together into the old Headmistress, catching her in the stomach and doubling her over. She wheezed, and nearly fell to her knees.

“Time to talk, Potter,” Snape said calmly. “You know what my Master desires.”

McGonagall struggled back upright, still trying to catch her breath, but she was shaking her head fiercely towards Harry, clearly imploring him not to answer Snape’s questions. She spat weakly at Snape’s feet, but her mouth continued to work, trying to recapture her breath.

“Very well,” Snape said with mock regret, “but do not forget, it is you who have chosen this, the two of you.”

Quick as a serpent, he was at McGonagall’s side, with the flask unstoppered at her lips. Her eyes went wide as the liquid splashed into her mouth, but he put his other hand to the back of her neck, pulling her head back by the hair, and the viscous elixir slid down her throat.

“You leave her alone!” Harry was twisting at his bonds, knowing that all he was doing was pulling the skin away from his already bloody wrists. “Come on, Snape. Coward! Traitor! It’s me you want, leave her alone!”

While Harry hissed defiance from a few feet away, Snape had begun to slowly circle Headmistress McGonagall, watching in fascination. At first, she clutched her throat and tried in vain to spit, to cough up the potion which had already reached her stomach and was rushing to her bloodstream. Then, she grew very pale and began to tremble.

“Obviously, testing was difficult,” Snape said in self-important awe. “At last the Dark Lord relented and allowed Pettigrew to ‘volunteer’ for the final formulation. The effect is sadly temporary, but it will suffice today.”

McGonagall dropped to her hands and knees, and when she looked up, her face was a mask of horror, affixed with dark markings around her eyes where she normally wore her spectacles, and Harry could see the gleam of light off of whiskers, where the torchlight and the still-glowing red coals cast their light. With a shudder, her glasses returned, but the whiskers remained, and her eyes reflected the light as does a cat’s. She opened her mouth and a choked gasp came out, which rose in pitch to become a thin wail. With that, she shuddered once more, and there stood the former Transformation Professor, in her grey and black striped animagus form as a cat.

Unlike previous transformations of hers that Harry had seen, this was not a smooth, controlled glide from one state to another. Instead, she had twitched and stuttered down into this form, and now instead of glaring with asperity and self-possession as she always had in either feline or human form, McGonagall now trembled, eyes darting around, ears flat, body low to the ground.

“Professor—” Harry faltered and turned towards Snape, who was still looking with a combination of clinical curiosity and smug pride at his former colleague. “Snape, what have you done?”

“Last chance, Mr. Potter,” Snape said, now looking Harry directly in the eye for the first time since the Headmistress had been brought in. At that, McGonagall turned her body sideways, arching her back, her tail and fur straight up, puffed up in a threat-display, and she actually hissed at Snape.

Harry knew what to do, what he had to do. He hoped that he could do it.

“Very well,” Snape said. He casually snapped his long fingers down by his side with a loud click.

At once the two Black Band men, almost forgotten, dropped the leads to their dogs and called sharply “ _Fass!_ ” Without hesitation, the dogs leaped forward towards McGonagall.

She never saw them coming. She had hissed in warning and reflex against Snape, unable to transform back into her witch form due to his potion. The closer of the two bull terriers closed his jaws around her middle, teeth tearing into her belly below and crunching her back above. With a screech, McGonagall was flung into the air and tried to spin and land on her feet in the way of cats, but her entire back end was limp and flopping, so she was coming down head first, front paws splayed. Before she could hit the ground, the second dog was catching her in its mouth, getting one of her forelegs and her neck in its powerful jaws.

There was one more sound, mercifully brief, from what had been a cat, that had once been Minerva McGonagall, Professor, Head of Gryffindor House, and too briefly Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry closed his eyes, but he could still see in his mind’s eye, could still hear the echo of that final sound, could still hear the dogs, wrestling and attacking and playing in front of him.

Harry forced his eyes open, and then did what he had known he must. He ignored what was happening on the floor, and instead looked right into Snape’s dark eyes.

Snape raised a hand, and the Black Band men called out, “ _Fuss!_ ”

The two dogs stopped what they had been doing and trotted back to their handlers, who once again took them by their leads. Harry could see blood and fur around their mouths, and one licked its chops noisily, twice, before settling back down at its handler’s heel.

“Now that you are motivated properly, Potter,” Snape said softly after a moment as if even he was feeling the terrible weight of what had just happened, of what he had just done, in the dungeon chamber. He paused as he reached inside his cloak for his last Veritaserum.

“Why are you… smiling, Potter?” Snape could not disguise the confusion in his voice.

Still grinning and looking SNape right in his cold, dead eyes, Harry leaned his head forward and spat at the stones at his feet. Rookwood moved forward, then grabbed Harry’s head in alarm and pried his lips open.

“Little fucker!” Rookwood shouted, looking back at Snape in alarm. “He’s bitten off his own tongue!”

Snape paused, aghast, confounded, and angry, looking at the vial clutched in his hand.

Without a further word, Snape roared in inarticulate rage and smashed the potion vial to the floor, where the impervious crystal bottle skittered away into the darker corners of the chamber. Snape didn’t pause to unlock the latch, instead simply slashing with his wand and sundering the door, blasting it from its hinges while dogs and handlers scattered away from him. He swept out, his black cloak quickly disappearing down the dark corridor.

Harry’s mocking smile had fallen from his face, and he tried to keep his eyes raised, while blood and tears rolled down his body, until he was taken back to be chained again in his cell. He did not look at whatever remained on the floor of the chamber. Once chained back in his cell, the lights were extinguished and Harry was left alone. In the pitch black, darker than any cupboard under any stair, Harry Potter wept himself to sleep for the first time in a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alas, Headmistress McGonagall.
> 
> Snape is proving that he is just as cruel and unrelenting as his Dark Lord in this chapter. I think we can safely take any hope of a 'deus ex Rowling' redemption arc for Snape and bury it alive in a deep dark hole.
> 
> Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. This is some dark shit, darker even than my outline called for when I started writing this chapter past week.
> 
> I'm not in a good place right now, and neither are my beloved characters.
> 
> I won't say "enjoyable," but I hope you all found the text engaging in some meaningful way. I think there are some good imagery or phrases here and there.
> 
> Stay safe, do good, be well.
> 
> Killjoy


	7. Caesura

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A suspension of the story. See the text below for details.

My friends, I regret that my health does not allow me to continue this story at this time. I have about two and half additional chapters nearly complete, but they need editing and are not up to my standards for publication.

I hope to return to the series when my condition allow me to do so. I do not wish to comment further at this time.

Also, I will not be sending copies of the previous works out for the time being. Please, if you have the previous stories and are able to share them, respond to your peers in the comments.

I wish you all the best, and thank you for your warm reception here.

Stay safe, do good, be well.

Matthew "ReverendKilljoy" Cafiero  
11 October 2020.


	8. Intermezzo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Intermezzo- a short, connecting movement in a work.
> 
> Not a full chapter, but a few vignettes to provide some updates on what is happening outside of the Resistance currently regrouping at the Longbottom estates. 
> 
> I hope to return to this story over the Thanksgiving break to advance the plot more, but I am not certain regarding that timeline.
> 
> • Snape's frustrations  
> • The Mountains of Bulgaria  
> • Carreg ddraig (dragon stone)  
> • A house-elf does a service  
> • Doing the Dark Lord's work

**8\. Intermezzo**

Snape stood at the school gates, grimacing at the young wizard who was trembling before him. One did not bring bad news to the Dark Lord, but reporting to any of his inner circle was fraught with danger as well. Snape raised one eyebrow, his face smoothing into a dangerously calm visage.

“What,” Snape asked, with his clipped, deceptively calm diction, “appears to be the problem?”

“The stones, sir,” the newly minted Death Eater replied. “They come in on the train, but we haven’t been able to move them onto the grounds with magic. They... they resist, sir.”

“Our Dark Lord has specific plans, and those plans require this material. Perhaps you would like to explain your failures personally?”

“We’ve tried transfiguration, charms, even putting the stones on sledges and pulling them with spellwork. Nothing but brute force will shift them.” The youth’s voice was rising in pitch, though more from frustration than fear. This actually pleased Snape. While fear of the Dark Lord was of course necessary, the ability to function and focus on the problem at hand was in too short a supply among the Black Band and some of his fellow Death Eaters.

“If brute force is the solution, why have you not tried brute force?” He allowed a sneer to settle into his face and voice. No point in going too easy on the man. “Use the half-breed.” 

Snape turned, and his cloak flared dramatically behind him as he swept through the gates. With Potter still unbroken, the mystery of their high losses at the Weasley wedding still unsolved, and the location of Dumbledore’s wand still unknown, Snape felt himself being pulled in multiple directions like a drunk trying to Apparate. With that uncomfortable thought, he apparated away, determined to have something positive to report to his master before nightfall.

* * *

On the slope of Mt. Vitosha, looking down towards the valley where Sofia, the jewel of the Balkans, glistened in the morning sun, was a small cabin. On the porch of this cabin, heated by a roaring wood fire, was a large copper and oak tub, fragrant with birch and pine resins, filled with mineral waters with famed restorative properties.

In this tub, a large man, with close-cropped hair and a somewhat slope-shouldered posture, was working this way through a stack of mail as he soaked in the mineral waters. Most of the papers went directly into a chute which fed into the fireplace which heated his tub. A small few made it to a hammered copper tray, to be addressed more personally after his soak.

“Viktor?” A feminine voice, lazy and spoiled, called from the bed inside the cabin’s one room. “Are you coming back to bed?”

“ _Ne_ ,” he answered, his eyes drawn to an envelope which contained, not a wizarding address and the claw marks of an owl, but a Muggle stamp and postmark. “Make some breakfast, would you? I’ll be right there.”

A noncommittal noise from within confirmed that once again, he had chosen poorly, and his companion was expecting luxury and celebrity, and not “merely” a fantastic view, some accomplished sex, and a nice morning together. Someday, he would stop thinking with his _pishka_ and would find a girl of some substance.

He opened the envelope, and his habitual scowl broke into a grin.

_Dearest Viktor,_

_Thank you again for your kind letters while I was in hospital. I want you to know that I am happy to renew our acquaintance. However, I must share with you dire news..._

He read the letter twice, then brought it to his lips briefly before carefully burning it, and the envelope that it had come in. He levered his muscular body out of the hot tub, steam rising from his naked flesh in the cool mountain air.

He had his wand in his hand when he entered the cabin. The girl—what was her name?—was sullenly poking at the samovar with her wand, struggling to even make tea. He grunted and started throwing on clothes. With a flick of his wand, he summoned his sweet _svetkavitsa,_ his custom match broomstick, and mounted it as he threw his fur cloak over his shoulders.

“Make your own way back to the city,” he told the girl shortly, noticing in the cool morning light that she was neither so young nor so attractive as she had seemed at the party the previous evening. Still… He threw some coins onto the table.

“For your trouble,” he muttered, moving back to the porch where the hot tub was already beginning to cool.

“I’m no _k_ _urva_ , you selfish _kopele!_ ” He was pelted in the back by coins as he mounted his broom and kicked upwards into flight.

He rose quickly, turned a broad arc, and with a flash he was truly flying, speeding down the slopes and away. Checking briefly over his shoulder, his keen eyes could pick out the girl, picking coins out of the snow and cursing him, before he sped away down the valley.

* * *

The hulking figure grew larger, step by weary step, looming out of the morning gloom. The silhouette was inhuman, with a dimly perceivable mass rising offset from the torso, while huge legs shuffled underneath, supporting the impossible bulk. At one point, as it came nearer to the gates of the Hogwarts castle, one foot caught a rut in the path and for a moment it appeared that he might stumble, even fall.

A stout man wearing the Black Band appeared from behind the looming figure, providing a scale that made it clear just how massive the approaching figure must be. The wizard lashed out with a whip, its length uncoiling from at least four paces away, hitting the tree-trunk-like legs and causing a spray of blood to color the dusty path. The huge man, for that’s what the figure was, shifted an enormous bundle of stones from one shoulder to the other, revealing a massive head, dark eyes flashing under heavy brows. Rubeus Hagrid, the former Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, turned his head and scowled at the whip-wielding wizard. Hagrid’s black beard and hair, streaked with iron-grey, were matted with blood and filth, and his snarl revealed a huge, broken tooth the size of a garden trowel. The task-master instinctively flinched, then gathered himself, threatening again with the coiled whip.

“Come on, beast,” the man growled, uncoiling his whip. “Move! Shift that hod!”

The whip cracked, and a scarlet line of blood began to well up on Hagrid’s forehead. The half-giant barely blinked. He continued to eye the man with the whip. He flexed his enormous fingers around the straps to the mountain of stones slung on his back. But then, as if becoming aware of his surroundings all at once, he glanced towards the Hogwarts gates. He saw a group of children, cowering under the eyes of Death Eaters and members of the young witches and wizards who had fallen under their thrall.

The students, some of them barely old enough to carry a wand, if that, were staring at Hagrid in undisguised fear and concern.

He slowly turned his head and spat in the dust. Without acknowledging the wizard with the whip, Hagrid continued towards the gate. When he was close enough to look into the children’s eyes, he gave a tired grin and a wink and set down the rough wooden hod loaded with the black Welsh stone, the _carreg ddraig_. One of the older students lifted a stone off the hod and turned to pass it to the next student in line. Hagrid, despite the aching fire in his bones, moved to help them, but he was turned away, back to the platform to pick up another load of stone from the train.

Behind him, a young Death Eater smiled, counted the stone blocks now heading to their destination, and adjusted figures on a parchment held in his hands. Snape would be pleased. More importantly, the Dark Lord might not demand his personal report, which was even better news for the young wizard.

* * *

“Happy birthday, Master Harry Potter, sir.” The voice, unmistakably a house-elf, woke Harry from his feverish dreaming. Harry’s mouth still tasted of blood and the wound to his tongue had not begun to heal properly due to the aggressive treatment he had received since Headmistress McGonagall’s death. 

Although Harry was still being tortured, there was a dispassionate, mechanical quality to it, now that he was unable to speak and therefore could not be as effectively questioned. Harry managed to fix his eyes on the slightly less dark doorway to his dark cell.

He made a questioning sound as best he could, and spotted a dimly illuminated house-elf; it might have been Pip, but he was not sure in his current state.

“Don’t try to talk yet, Master Harry Potter,” the thin high voice squeaked softly. The elf appeared inside the bars of his cell with a soft pop that seemed like a cannon in the darkness. “I is bringing a message from Dobby, sir. I is told to ask you, does Dobby have your permission to fetch you a present from your trunk, sir?”

Harry tried to follow this, but his head was swimming and he was weak from pain, torment, and hunger. Finally, he just nodded silently, hoping the elf would go away.

Immediately he heard the elf say, “Very good, Master Harry Potter! Pip is leaving you a cuppa, sir. Sip it very carefully.”

He was starting to slump back down when he heard the whisper of the elf add, “It is tea from Professor Sprout, sir. Drink it all up, she is saying.”

Sometime later, Harry woke with a start, convinced the entire episode had been a delusion until he felt the cup of still-warm tea in his hand. He carefully managed to put some of the warm liquid past his blood-caked lips, and immediately felt it soothing where he had bitten through his tongue. He was able to drink the cup of sweet, warm tea, feeling some strength returning to his mind and body, and he fell asleep again. For mercy, he did not dream.

* * *

Dennis Creevey and Kelly Allen were part of a long line of children that stretched from the gates of the school to a large clearing where one of the herbology greenhouses had once stood. It’s blasted and charred remains had been swept to one side, and an area some fifteen yards in diameter had been cleared. It was to this area that the children were passing curious bricks of black stone, hand to hand, in a winding chain from the front gate.

Dennis was trying to figure out what kind of stone the blocks were made of, but little Kelly, next to him in line, refused to engage in his speculations. Her head was slumping, he back bowed. He worried that she might collapse, and be taken to the infirmary.

Previously, the matron of Hogwarts, Madam Pomfrey, had been an imposing but reassuring figure at the school, quick with a bitter tonic but a watchful eye, caring carefully for all the children in her charge. Since the arrival of Snape and You Know Who’s minions, however, the hospital wing had been called “the infirmary,” always in whispers. No child who had been taken there had yet returned.

“Come on, Allen,” Dennis said with cheerful bravado he did not feel. “Head up. Just a few more bricks until tea.”

The young witch looked at him, her lip trembling. She seemed to waver between an answer and a collapse. Instead, she sighed, and took a stone block from his hands, her face showing the strain as she turned to hand it to the next child in line. When she turned back, however, there was a hint of a smile. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to reassure Dennis that the girl would make it to the next break, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Snape, you prick.
> 
> Krum! Krum! Krum!
> 
> Hagrid! YAY! Hagrid, oh no...
> 
> Dennis, good lad.


End file.
